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Within the Year After 



BY 

BETTY ADLER 

M 

Special Correspondent of The Lee Newspaper Syndicate in 
France, Belgium, Italy and Germany. Registered 
Correspondent of The American Commis- 
sion to Negotiate Peace in Paris. 




CHICAGO 

M. A. DONOHUE & CO. 

1920 



*$ 



COPYRIGHT 

1920 

By BETTY. ADLER 



©CI.A570787 
JUL ku 1320 



Co iWp IBrotfjer 

Who Made the Trip Possible 

And to 

THE MEMORY OF OUR PARENTS 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER PAGE 

I " Excuse, Please, the War " 1 

II Inside the Gates at Versailles 10 

III To Chateau Thierry, Belleau Woods, 

Soissons, Rheims 21 

IV In the Ambassador's Garden 49 

V About Paul 57 

VI The Victory Parade 65 

VII With a House Party in the Citadel 

of Verdun 80 

VIII The Canteen Girl Who Listened 104 

IX With the Watch on the Rhine Ill 

X With the Fighting First 127 

XI In Alsace-Lorraine 142 

XII Hearing Egypt 's Cause 153 

XIII When Our Jack Tar Came to Paree. . 161 

XIV With the American Committee for 

Devastated France 174 

XV In Sacked and Burned Termonde, 

Belgium 196 

XVI At Belgium's Great Divide — The 

Yser 207 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER PAGE 

XVII Through a Kidnapped Louvain 

Factory 230 

XVIII Antwerp and Its Fort Waelhem 242 

XIX In Martyred Dinant and Charleroi . . 256 

XX Meeting the Commander-in-Chief. . . . 275 

XXI When Austria Signed 280 

XXII In Italy, on the Piave 293 

XXIII On the Carso — and in Trieste 315 

XXIV In Rome — Passport Worries 335 

XXV A New Cult and An Old Quarter 353 

XXVI Getting Through to Berlin 363 

XXVII Where Fashions are Created 389 

XXVIII Back to the U. S. A 406 



Within the Year After 



CHAPTER I 



( i 



EXCUSE, PLEASE, THE WAE ' ' 

Pabis, June 23, 1919. 
<S\ TELEGRAM? It could not get there be- 
■1 \. fore tomorrow, Madame. Maybe later. 
All telegrams zay must go through za military 
— you will be in Paris long time ahead of 
telegram. Zis train, it makes stop now because 
our coal is so bad. You must excuse, please — 
here it is still za war. Madame, you will excuse, 
please, za war? " 

Leaning through the doorway of a compart- 
ment, at the village of Rue, where the steamer 
special, enroute from Boulogne-sur-Mer to 
Paris, had been sidetracked yesterday after- 
noon, I was imploring a train official to send 
a dispatch for me, when he apologized thusly 
for the war. In my best American-French I 
replied, " Never mind — that's all right — it has 

1 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



been my war as well as yours, and you need 
offer no apologies." For " Bleeding France," 
true to her breeding, regrets your inconveni- 
ences in getting through her war-scarred re- 
gions. Only now, instead of " C'est la Guer- 
re " (It is the War), they remind you "C'est la 
Paix," (It is the Peace). 

But all the inconveniences for the traveler go- 
ing abroad in these months after the armistice 
are not in France. Mine began three months ago 
when I first applied for a passport to the State 
Department in Washington. Getting a pass- 
port is equivalent to a liberal education these 
days. Then every scrap of writing or printed 
matter I carried had to be examined and sealed 
up by the custom house officials in New York 
before I could go on board the steamer, includ- 
ing even my letter of credit and visiting cards, 
and the seal was not to be broken until I had 
been three hours at sea. For the peace is not 
yet signed and I crossed on a Dutch liner, hav- 
ing overlooked the fact, when my passage was 
booked, that Holland was neutral. 

Landing in the picturesque harbor of Bou- 
logne by tender in the quiet of the Sunday noon, 

2 



" EXCUSE, PLEASE, THE WAR " 

I knew I was across at last when I saw on the 
dock a tubby French peasant woman in holi- 
day attire, with the quaint Boulognese cap, a 
circle of stiffly starched, pleated muslin, like 
a wheel, around her plump face. Our pass- 
ports had been examined minutely by French 
officials who came on board the liner in the 
early morning. On the dock our hand luggage 
had to be inspected before we were permitted 
to enter the train. 

And right there, when my heels first touched 
French soil, it was a smiling-eyed American 
soldier who came to my assistance. For a space 
of three minutes I had taken my eyes from my 
suitcase, after giving it into the hands of a 
burly porter on the tender, and he had disap- 
peared as if into thin air. The Yankee dough- 
boy rushed to my aid. " Never leave your 
hand baggage out of your sight, ' ' was his warn- 
ing, ' ' we are here to see that baggage is not 
stolen. ' ' 

In the crowded customs office on the pier 
there was great hurry and bustle. My inspec- 
tion officer was a middle-aged Frenchwoman, 
tall and gaunt in black. I waited while she con- 

3 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



vinced a party of indignant men that it was ex- 
pensive to bring cigars and tobacco into France. 
They paid a franc duty on each cigar — or she 
kept the cigars. 

The steamer train to Paris had been heralded 
to have a restaurant car and so it did. But 
it was a very old car, owing to the necessity 
of utilizing any rolling stock left, and there 
was no communication between the diner and 
the remainder of the train. This meant that 
everyone must climb out at a station and dash 
along the platform to the diner. It was an 
exciting proceeding since there was always the 
risk that the train might move on without you. 
And being stranded on the French landscape 
was not alluring. Many passengers refused 
to leave their compartments and went without 
luncheon rather than take the chance. Poor 
coal and a tremendously heavy train for the 
miniature engine, together with sidetracking 
several times to allow troop trains to pass, pro- 
longed what is usually a three hour journey 
to eight hours. But no one complained. It was 
good to get through at all, for much of the 
route lay through the Somme, that shell-rocked 

4 



" EXCUSE, PLEASE, THE WAR " 

corner of the western theater of The War. 

We had not left the peaceful harbor of Bou- 
logne far behind when I first came face to face 
with The War. Trains of Red Cross cars had 
appeared and disappeared on the passing coun- 
tryside, their emblems of mercy blazoned across 
the side doors of the coupes, for the foreign 
railway carriage is usually a series of coupes, 
holding six or eight passengers, and opening at 
the sides like a cab. These Red Cross trains 
stood on sidings or passed us swiftly. Some- 
times it was a train of box cars, their open 
doorways filled with eager poilu or Tommy 
faces, waving uniform caps or figures huddled 
on the floor trying to find a comfortable posi- 
tion. 

Then like a drop curtain, it appeared — a 
huge hospital camp — and beyond a cemetery. 
I never knew crosses could be placed so closely 
together — and the many, many rows! So this 
was Sunny France and what the war had 
meant ! 

But today when I gazed at the statue of 
Strasbourg in the Place de la Concorde — be- 
fore the Hotel Crillon, the headquarters of the 

5 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



American Commission to Negotiate Peace, 
where at this hour world history is in the mak- 
ing — the statue symbolical of the principal city 
of Alsace-Lorraine, that for fifty years stood 
here in the heart of Paris, draped in mourn- 
ing, now gay with the colors of the Allies who 
freed her, and they told me that the iron chains 
that have shackled her since her separation 
from France are now to be removed — I felt 
that they who slept beneath those crosses in 
Picardy must know and rejoice that they did 
not make the supreme sacrifice in vain. 

As we approached Amiens, the war came 
closer at every mile. In a peaceful village, 
nestling against a sunny slope, sometimes it 
was the corner of a building shot away, laying 
bare the mangled interior; again it was a top 
story blown off entirely. Often it was a great 
jagged hole torn into masonry that gave mute 
testimony to the advance of the merciless Hun. 
Paneless windows for blocks filled in the rest 
of the story. 

Then quite as unexpectedly we came upon the 
trenches. In the bright June sunshine it was 
impossible to realize them. Like harmless ter- 

6 



" EXCUSE, PLEASE, THE WAR " 

races they first appeared, as they arose in 
waves over the softly undulating country in the 
peaceful light of the summer Sunday afternoon. 
Over many the tender grass was timidly, brave- 
ly, trying to grow. Every few yards there was 
the sheltered doorway of a dugout, now de- 
serted. This was where the soldiers had dug 
themselves havens of refuge during the recent 
days of that cruel modern warfare. 

And there, now, the poppies had come. Oh, 
these poppies of Picardy — like the afterglow 
of the noble young lives that gave just such 
vivid blood to the Great Cause! Wide fields 
of them swayed, fanned by the June breeze! 
Their flaming color was like splashes of glow- 
ing coals against the deep green foliage. For 
miles and miles they colored the landscape. 
They dared to go up to the very doors of the 
dugouts. Once I saw — three red poppies set 
in the arid waste before a dugout entrance, 
proudly upright on their slim, green stems, 
nodding and smiling in the soft winds. It was 
not difficult to fill in the remainder of the pic- 
ture, of a trio fighting there hand to hand. And 
now three glowing red poppies whisper of the 

7 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



hero souls who gave up the sunshine of life that 
peace might once again reign over this earth. 
I wish I might send to every American mother, 
whose son sleeps on the sunny slopes of France, 
the picture of those poppies as I saw them. 
In their living flame they seemed a soul part 
of those hardy young lives sacrificed. And 
every year as long as Time shall last the pop- 
pies will return to these battlefields, conse- 
crated by the blood of our hero dead, as liv- 
ing symbols of the new Brotherhood of Man 
that has now reached around a world. 

The train stopped at Amiens, and there in 
the roof of the depot platform, almost directly 
above our car, was a huge hole caused by a 
dropping shell. The depot life moved unheed- 
ingly around below it. French, English and 
American soldiers chatted in groups about the 
platform. And the sunlight streamed through 
the ragged hole above their heads. 

Between Amiens and Paris the train ran 
closer and closer to the trenches. It is rolling 
country, resembling that of our Middle West. 
Were it not for the red roofed, quaint cottages, 
snuggled among the trees, one might have been 

8 



" EXCUSE, PLEASE, THE WAR " 

on a road into Chicago, only for the swollen 
scars that seamed across the open fields, mute 
reminders of a land invaded. But already re- 
construction has begun and it was good to see 
that many fields have been ploughed over in 
the trenched grounds in that sector of the 
Somme. 

And so at nine o'clock in the summer twi- 
light — they have the daylight saving hour here, 
— we slowly but surely steamed into Paris, 
through its seething, rushing, Gare du Nord or 
North Depot — into Paris — the Hub of the 
Peace Universe — at last! 



CHAPTER II 

INSIDE THE GATES AT VERSAILLES 

Paris, June 28. 

HOW I spent my first week in Paris pull- 
ing wires to get to the Peace Signatory 
ceremony at the Chateau of Versailles is a story 
in itself. Getting past St. Peter at the Pearly 
Gates must be easier. From fifth-under-secre- 
taries and Y. officials up to our American Am- 
bassador himself, the Honorable Hugh Camp- 
bell Wallace, to whom I had a personal letter 
of introduction from his old chum, Senator 
Saulsbury of Delaware — Hon. Wilbur Marsh 
of Waterloo, had given me a letter to him — I 
approached countless officials daily. I gathered 
that they felt it was presumption, to say the least, 
for a correspondent just arrived in Paris to 
Cherish such a hope. At the press bureau the 
ticket committee was wild-eyed, with 120 en- 
titled to admission and place for but sixty. 
Finally, through Ray Stannard Baker, head of 
the American Press in Paris, at 11 o'clock on 

10 



INSIDE THE GATES AT VERSAILLES 

this morning of the signing clay I was given a 
precious pink card to the terrace. 

A taxi was out of the question at that hour 
on this eventful day in Paris, so my cousin, 
Mme. Arthur Blad, took me in her car. I had 
been given at the press headquarters a letter of 
instructions regarding the route and a special 
yellow and green cocade, a yellow disk sticker 
with a green center, the marker to be glued to 
the front window or the wind shield of the car, 
to the left of the chauffeur. This cocade was 
the " laissez passer." Without it no car could 
proceed over the special reserved route, which 
lay through St. Cloud, the Ville d'Avray and 
up Picardy Hill. 

It was 12:15 when we left Paris for the 
twenty-mile drive to Versailles. I had fastened 
my two American flags to the car much to the 
delight of one, Louis, who grinned in voluble 
French when I informed him that he was now 
a ' ' chauffeur Americaine. ' ' Out past the race 
track of the Longchamps, where the Grand Prix 
was to be run the next day, and across the 
Seine we sped to show our cards at the Paris 



11 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



gates and to be admitted to the route reserved 
for the guests to Versailles. 

Now all the way, every fifty feet, on alternate 
sides of the smooth white road, stood a French 
soldier, holding a red flag. Only the fact that 
the flag was held downward permitted us to 
proceed. These soldiers were in the French 
horizon-blue uniform, always nattily pictur- 
esque, and they wore the blue helmets. A few 
had, slung over one shoulder, what appeared 
like blue life preservers. The Ville d'Avray is 
a charming little hamlet, nestling in wooded 
hills, with its old stone buildings, straight and 
severe, holding sentinel up each side of the 
steep road. 

The city of Versailles (and you must pro- 
nounce it Ver-sigh-ee) was in gala attire. The 
flags of the Allies were fluttering everywhere. 
Eegiments of the Garde Republicaine in their 
gorgeous uniforms, resplendent with gold trim- 
mings, set off by wide saber belts of white and 
epaulets of scarlet and gold, with their nodding 
-red plumed helmets, looked like storied 
' ' knights of old. ' ' A deep hedge of blue clad 
troops, both cavalry and infantry, lined the 

12 



INSIDE THE GATES AT VERSAILLES 

way through which the cars of the peace delega- 
tion approached the chateau. 

Paris-American papers are frank in say- 
ing that the ceremony itself lacked picturesque- 
ness — just a few frock-coated men signing 
the great document with modern fountain pens 
on a table fitted up with modern inkstands and 
blotters. But they claimed it was amply com- 
pensated by the majestic setting of the scene 
from the Court of Honor. Probably never, even 
in the days of the Grand Monarch, did the Place 
d'Armes, the open parade ground before the 
palace, present a more imposing sight. 

Our instructions included the parking of the 
car in the Eue de Reservoir, which by this time 
looked like an auto show. From there we ap- 
proached the group of harassed guards sta- 
tioned twenty feet from the high iron gates. It 
was about 2 :30 when we were permitted to en- 
ter. With all the red tape in regard to name- 
inscribed tickets, there was a crush at the en- 
trance moment. 

Once inside the gates I blinked my eyes as 
I recognized the great paved courtyard, so 
familiar in picture to all of us, with the heroic, 

13 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



mounted statue of Louis xiv ' * Louis Qua- 
torze " high on a stone platform in the center, 
the huge court enclosed by the palace build- 
ings. 

Hardly had we found a place behind the 
single line of blue clad troops that circled 
the vast courtyard when the order of "Atten- 
tion " brought them into a motionless ring of 
horizon blue. There were shouts of " Vive 
Clemenceau" and the car of the French pre- 
mier came into view and passed before us. 

It was, above all, a Clemenceau crowd, for he 
is the idol of France today. Every time the 
dapper, little, white haired statesman appeared 
he was given an ovation. ' ' They are all Clem- 
enceau fans," an American soldier put it. For 
France knows Clemenceau waited forty-eight 
years for this hour when he could deal out 
retribution to the Huns for their wrongs to 
Alsace-Lorraine. It was peculiarly significant 
that here, in this very palace he was entering, 
in the selfsame room where he had heard Bis- 
marck arrogantly proclaim the German Empire 
and Wilhelm i its first kaiser, that M. Clemen- 
ceau should be the dominating figure at the 

14 



INSIDE THE GATES AT VERSAILLES 

moment when Germany met her just deserts at 
the hands of the allied nations of the world, 
and the German Empire disappeared ignomin- 
iously. 

The automobile of President Wilson followed 
that of the French Premier and the crowd paid 
him homage with salvos and cheers. Marshal 
Foch was enthusiastically acclaimed. The cars 
of the delegates of the Allied world followed 
swiftly and as their flags, fluttering from the 
wind shields, were recognized they were 
cheered. 

I wonder, now, what Louis the Fourteenth 
would have thought had he been there in the 
center, in place of his bronze statue, to see this 
assemblage of diplomats come from the far 
ends of the earth to sign a peace that shall 
mean security for France. I wonder how he 
would have looked upon this new altruism that 
brought two million free men across the seas, 
not in conquest, but for the sake of humanity. 
And now the distinguished head of their nation 
was within his palace gates, come to see that 
justice shall prevail for all the earth. Surely it 
would have been bewildering for the eighteenth 

15 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



century to comprehend. And yet Lafayette 
came to us in our great hour of need ! The cars 
rolling swiftly toward the chateau doors proved 
the words ' ' Every man has two countries ; his 
own and France. ' ' 

At a signal, the horizon-blue line of soldiery 
in the ring around the courtyard gave way and 
we hurried with the guests across the immense 
stone square, over the base of the statue 's pedes- 
tal, through an arcade, and out into the famous 
gardens of Versailles. In the beautiful sunken 
gardens, where the hoop-skirted belles and 
satin-clad, powder-wigged, beaux of the days 
of royalty promenaded and flirted in the Junes 
of bygone centuries, I stood today a part of the 
throng of several hundred spectators beneath 
the high windows of the Hall of Mirrors where 
in a few moments was scheduled to occur the 
the " greatest event in history," the signing 
of the " New Charter of Humanity." 

Just in front of us was a line of the bril- 
liantly garbed Garde Republicaine. Across the 
driveway ahead the warm June sunshine fell 
upon a miniature lake, the basin of Apollo, one 
of the great fountains of the chateau. Here we 

16 




Motor car of President Wilson crossing the Court of Honor to the entrance of 
the Hall of Mirrors for the Signing of the Peace of Versailles. 




At Versailles Chateau, before the Hall of Mirrors at Peace Signing. 



INSIDE THE GATES AT VERSAILLES 

waited for a sign from the arched, silent windows 
of the Galerie de Glace that the dove of peace 
had alighted, after fonr long years of frightful 
war. Gradually the crowd moved nearer until 
it surrounded the fountain pool. I stood just 
across the paved terrace from the high col- 
umned windows when the boom of the first 
cannon at 3:50 gave the glad news that there 
was peace again on this earth. 

Eight huge airplanes that had been circling 
restlessly over the palace and grounds for an 
hour, since the entry of the peace delegation, 
swooped lower to drone their song of victory 
from the clouds. Birds flew about them. The 
fountains in the gardens burst into play, the 
first time since the war began. Together M. 
Clemenceau, Mr. Lloyd George and President 
Wilson, a few moments later, emerged from the 
doorway through which the German delegates 
had entered and the crowd closed around them 
as they crossed the terrace to view the cascade 
of the fountains. 

The French crowd is delightfully naive. 
Everywhere women, girls and even men carried 
folding camp chairs and, when the monosyl- 

17 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



labic guards would allow thera to go no farther, 
they quietly unfolded their camp chairs and 
rested calmly until the next advance, or stood 
upon them to gaze over the sea of heads. No 
one resented these chairs — they made room 
for them as they envied them. At the climax 
moment when the first of the 101 guns sounded 
a pretty French mademoiselle of eighteen, 
mounted on a camp stool at my side, was con- 
tentedly munching a sandwich — and she kept 
right on eating it. 

Later an American officer commenting on the 
incident, to me said, ' ' The French people know 
these ceremonies take hours so they come pre- 
pared to stay. They've got the right system. 
I've been out here since the beginning and 
couldn't get inside the gates. No, haven't seen 
a thing and came all the way from camp for 
it." We were part of a small group waiting 
in the little street before the Senate chamber, 
where our car had been parked, when it was 
whispered that President Wilson, Clemenceau 
and Lloyd George who had been strolling about 
the chateau grounds had entered the arched 
doorway to the Senate. So the American added 

18 



INSIDE THE GATES AT VERSAILLES 

' ' Right here I stay till I drop — they must come 
out sometime." And there we were joined by 
a few hundred more, eager to get a closer view 
of the Big Three. 

There was a cry of ' ' Clemenceau ' ' and the 
smiling face of (i The Tiger," as the French 
affectionately call him, appeared at the window 
above us, framed in his white hair. Then Pres- 
ident Wilson was seen in the window with what 
they call in Paris his ' ' Victory smile. ' ' The 
Hon. Arthur James Balfour, easily recognized 
from his pictures, waited near us in the narrow 
cobbled street, where presently M. Deschanel, 
president of the French Chamber of Deputies, 
joined him to chat as they waited for their mo- 
tor cars, both distinguished figures in their 
black frock coats and high silk hats. And here 
came, too, the delegates of many nations from 
Brazil to Japan. 

Gaily caparisoned regiments of soldiery 
moved in glittering columns across the parade 
grounds, cavalry with waving pennons and in- 
fantry with the sun glinting on their bayonets, 
making a brave spectacle, as we started back 
on the road to Paris at six o'clock. 

19 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



And so the New Peace came to earth and by- 
its very simplicity dominated the sumptuous 
splendor of its setting. Here in the palace of 
the French kings we were leaving, almost in 
the shadow of the tomb of Napoleon, the pleni- 
potentiaries of the leading nations of the world 
had, in a simple ceremony of less than an hour, 
signed and sealed a document to make this old 
earth safe for democracy — not pridefully, but 
simply and reverently, as befit the sad mem- 
ories of France and Belgium. 

With full hearts Ave came back to grateful, 
happy Paris, making ready to celebrate the 
Peace Night. 



20 



CHAPTER III 

TO CHATEAU THIERRY, BELLEAU WOODS, SOISSONS, 
RHEIMS 

Paris, July 3. 

THERE are three ways in which I could 
begin. 
I should begin at the end, like this: 
I have just seen a rainbow spanning the tor- 
tured Valley of the Marne. A perfect bow of 
promise it was, arched from the sky, its both 
ends, " where there is always a pot of gold " 
plainly visible as they dipped into the fertile 
meadows by the roadside. And I saw tired- 
eyed people, returned to the broken fragments 
of what had once been home, clearing away 
debris to begin life over. They were neither 
bitter nor buoyant — just quietly accepting the 
fortunes of war; looking ahead, not backward. 
For slowly, but surely, this mutilated valley is 
coming back. 

Or I might begin at the beginning and tell 
how, over the phone, at noon yesterday, Hon. 

21 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



Chas. Rawson of Des Moines, head of the Y. M. 
C. A. foyer at 12 Rue d'Aguesseau (the place 
familiar to every American soldier who came 
to Paris) said to me : " If you can be ready by 
4 o 'clock, Mr. Bickham, our Paris director, who 
is motoring to Chateau Thierry and Rheims in 
his private car, will take you along. ' ' 

But the way I want to begin, if it would not 
be too startling is this : 

Last night I slept in Chateau Thierry! 

To be entirely truthful I spent the night in 
Chateau Thierry, since sleep would hardly have 
been possible to anyone with a grain of imagi- 
nation after the first sight of this great 
American shrine in France. 

Quartered in the remnants of a handsome, 
old, residence, now the headquarters of the 
U. S. Army Y, in their apartment specially ' ' re- 
served for ladies," I tried to keep from think- 
ing back one short year ago, when just across 
the Marne, that flows past the high-porticoed 
doorway — and the Marne, remember, is only 
about half as wide as a city block — just on the 
opposite bank of that motionless stream, in the 
second story of the row of old buildings facing 

22 



TO CHATEAU THIERRY 



us, seventeen of our American machine guns 
played on the Hun horde that doggedly and 
determinedly held the town on this side of the 
river. I tried not to picture what must have 
been the scenes in this very same, shrapnel- 
pitted, mansion when the bridges out there 
were blown up by our American engineers and 
the Germans saw their doom. I tried not to 
think of the ride we had taken at nightfall to 
Belleau Wood, now and hereafter designated 
on French military maps as the Forest of the 
Marine Brigade, and of the pile of pine coffin 
boxes against the Mairie fence at Torcy, where 
the G. R. S., the Graves Registration Service 
of our American Army, is still searching for 
our hero dead, to inter their remains in Ameri- 
can cemeteries. 

I say I tried not to think of these things, 
because they were hardly a good sleep potion, 
and our day ahead was destined to be a strenu- 
ous one, over that sector of French soil en- 
graved indelibly in every American heart, the 
triangle marked off by Soissons, Rheims and 
Chateau Thierry. For it was here that America 
made her first dramatic entry into the war. 

23 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



Here American divisions played a stellar role 
in the great counter offensive that was the 
crucial turning point, and here raged, for three 
historic months last summer, such fighting that 
in the end gave glorious victory to the Allies. 

In justice to us much-maligned American 
11 kickers " abroad I want to record right here 
that Mile. Axler, the French girl who accompa- 
nied me from Paris, was the first to object to 
the primitive accommodations, since they are 
scarcely prepared to care for tourists at Cha- 
teau Thierry. ' ' Look, there are no sheets on the 
cots ! ' ' was her horrified exclamation. The 
door had just closed behind the Y canteen girl 
who had ushered us up the stairs and through 
the entrance, chalk-marked " Reserved for 
Ladies," with the apology "It is the best we 
have. " " You forget, ' ' I reminded the French 
girl, ' ' your country has been in war. ' ' And 
she, a born Parisienne, had shown me how 
she had held her hands over her ears when the 
Big Bertha shells crashed into Paris. 

Lying there on the gray-blanketed army cot, 
with the moon shining through the big double 
window over the ghostly ruins beyond, the 

24 



TO CHATEAU THIERRY 



wheezy piano sounding from the dance hall 
below, I recalled an incident in the Times office 
a week before I left. He was a young soldier 
and he had stooped stiffly to pick up a scrap 
of paper from the floor. " This weather makes 
my wounds bother me," he had remarked. 
' ' Where did you fight ? " I asked. His answer 
was "Chateau Thierry." Then, simply, he 
related it, with the simplicity of the greatest 
heroism. ' ' Asked my Captain if I could go 
over and stop that Boche gun that was firing 
at us. I had been lying in a miserable shell 
hole for hours and the chap next to me was 
dead. Captain said ' yes ' if I'd choose eight 
men to go with me. We went all right. I was 
the only one to come back. Oh, we got that 
Boche gun, we did — and the whole nest. ' ' 

And here in Chateau Thierry, which takes its 
name from the eighth century chateau, a rem- 
nant of which still remains — here in a quaint 
little old house, La Fountaine, the master of 
fables, was born back in 1621. They tell how, 
when the Allied troops entered the town, they 
found La Fountaine 's cellar transformed into 
a handsome dugout, the abandoned, half -drunk 

25 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



liquors and cigars revealing how hasty had been 
the leave taking of the officers hiding there 
from allied shells. I wonder if the fertile brain 
of La Fountaine, who preached his philosophy 
to mankind through the mouths of animals, 
could have conceived the philosophy of this new 
brotherhood that brought men from the far 
corners of the earth to save his besieged city, 
this ancient citadel on the Marne. 

Chateau Thierry has been the stumbling 
block of a hundred wars. It is scarred with 
endless invasions that through the many cen- 
turies have aimed at Paris as their goal, but it 
has always blocked the way. And here in the 
late Maytime of a year ago and into early June, 
American troops successfully headed off the 
biggest and last drive for Paris. The best of 
American blood flowed through its cobbled 
streets and into the silent blue waters of the 
Marne on the last day of May, 1918. Here 
Americans will always come to live over again 
the scenes where their sons, the youth, the 
ardor and the courage of the New World, turned 
the tide of battle for the discouraged allied 
host. Here sounded the knell of defeat for 

26 



TO CHATEAU THIEERY 



Might and came the first chime for the cause of 
Right triumphant. 

It was after six o'clock, owing to some auto 
trouble, before we started from Paris in the 
chill July evening. The tonneau of the car was 
heaped with packages of cigarets, supplies and 
reading matter for the isolated Gr. R. S. camps 
in the 200 miles we were to cover, a tour of 
inspection the Paris director makes weekly. 

Out past the great Paris abattoir we sped, 
through the high Pantin gate and over the 
Paris-Metz road, hurrying through the suburbs 
that cluster close to the very gates of Paris. 
Through the village of Claye, passing barracks 
that held many American soldiers during the 
war. Here the Y. M. C. A. was for months 
located in an old stable. 

The War came out to meet us before we had 
motored many miles. The grave of the first 
French soldier to give his life in 1914 was 
marked there by the roadside, very near to his 
beloved Paris, that one soldier out of every six 
in France gave his life to save. And a little 
farther on the graves of a French and a Ger- 
man soldier faced one another on the left of 
the road. 

27 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



Soon over in the distance, to the right, was 
visible the tower of the chateau where Gen. 
Joffre, now Field Marshal Joffre, or better 
' ' Papa Joffre " as he is lovingly called by his 
poilus, had his headquarters in 1914. 

We entered the city of Meaux, the principal 
headquarters of Gen. Joffre and there to our 
right was the chateau from where he directed 
the French troops that had been rushed from 
Paris in taxicabs and defeated the Germans 
in the first great victory for France. Here 
was executed that famous strategic move when 
these troops were hurled by Gen. Joffre on the 
exposed flank of Von Kluck's army, then sur- 
rounding Paris, and the Germans, had to, in 
good western vernacular, ' ' beat it back. ' ' For 
by breaking through just there Joffre had cut 
off the enemy's supplies and got the Germans 
" on the run." And then it was that the cables 
told a breathless world that the Huns had been 
turned back from the very gates of Paris. 

From here the way led past trenches, now 
filled in, marked like great, zigzag, white chalk 
lines across the tender green fields. Under the 
dark upper soil is a strata of white clay and in 

28 



TO CHATEAU THIERRY 



turning back the earth into the trenches the 
white of the clay follows indelibly their course. 

Now we were in the Valley of the Ourcq 
river. Along its banks to the north and east, 
around Sergy Heights, the 168th Iowa left its 
heroic record in red italics. Down here in this 
Valley of the Ourcq were upstanding fields of 
oats, wheat and sugar beets. 

In the village of Lizy sur Ourcq, as w r e drove 
through its winding streets, past shell-cut build- 
ings, we noticed the first of the signs of cellars 
' ' Refuge from Shells ' ' and the number of 
people each would hold. Later we were to enter 
towns where the refuge cellar signs were in 
both French and German, and finally one in 
which these placards were printed in French, 
German and English, telling of the succession 
of occupations by the three different armies. 
Barbed wire, in huge rolls, lined the roadside. 
Over in a field a row of windbreak trees were 
in full foliage. 

Back into the Paris-Metz road we swung and 
came upon Coupru, the headquarters of the 
Second division in 1918. There were continu- 
ous evidences here of hot shell fire on the 

29 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



houses. Beyond the hamlet, where shell-decapi- 
tated trees dotted the landscape, now placid, 
white cattle were contentedly grazing. 

Then, far to the left, we saw the shadowy 
outlines of Belleau Woods against the horizon, 
where most of that memorable June of 1918 our 
boys fought savagely. But Belleau "Woods was 
All- American before the Second division turned 
it over to the Twenty-sixth. From here Ameri- 
can valor is written on a fan-shaped area over 
the landscape. 

The car bumped along a shelled road, past 
trees still strung with rusty barbed wire, and 
trees, their whole tops blown off, bravely trying 
to hide their sorrow in a fringe of green 
around the blackened cut. The sunset glow 
fell across ground, every inch of which had 
been churned with shells. 

Then to the right we caught the first view of 
Hill 204, familiar to every American reader, 
the peak of the German drive on Paris one 
short year ago. 

We gazed at the shattered remains of the city 
of Vaux, the landmark of the Second division, 
a little crumbled village where, in spots, not 

30 



TO CHATEAU THIERRY 



one stone is left upon another. One small shop 
showed signs of returning life. In this area 
there is, it is claimed, no town so pulverized as 
Vaux. Its every house was a nest of machine 
guns and its every cellar was a German garri- 
son that day last July when the Ninth infantry 
captured the town. In its now debris-littered 
streets, the Americans fought hand to hand, 
for it was from here that they swept the Ger- 
mans from Hill 204. 

Out over the shell-hole-filled-in highway 
again for two miles and then Chateau Thierry 
appeared in the valley. We sped up a once 
tree-lined avenue, past skeleton houses, tum- 
bled piles of stone and mortar, to the heart 
of the ancient city that stands as a beacon light 
to far America — and stopped in the open 
square, alive with American soldiers, on the left 
bank of the storied Marne. 

Only hesitating long enough to consume a 
piece of delicious cake sent from the Y. mess- 
hall, we started out again in the deepening 
twilight for Belleau Woods. Coming in sight 
of the historic battlefield it was not difficult to 
conjure up in the dusk the shadowy figures 

31 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



creeping across the open fields into what is now 
left of the clumps of trees, nor to picture the 
huge tanks waddling across to sit on enemy 
gun nests. And we reached the line of these 
few acres of dense woods skirted by the road- 
way, and into the village of Torcy. It was here 
that the wonderful counter-offensive was 
launched in mid-July, less than a year ago, and 
the Twenty-sixth took the ruined village of 
Torcy in their forward rush. And right here 
the gallant Twenty-sixth went over the top on 
July 18, and for a solid week this Yankee divi- 
sion followed at the heels of the Hun. Here I 
knew I stood on hallowed ground. 

We stopped at Torcy at a high gateway in- 
scribed over its arch with the word " Maine." 
Once the place of the Mayor or Town-Hall, 
now it is the headquarters of the Gr. E. S. work- 
ing in this region. " Their 's is a grewsome 
task at best," commented the director as he 
took in the great packages of reading matter 
and smokes from the car. The bright-eyed 
young American soldier who welcomed us so 
happily, conducted us through the dark court- 
yard and proudly showed off their quarters. 

32 



TO CHATEAU THIERRY 



A great, barren, shadowy room it was, the sky 
visible through a roof punctured by shrapnel 
and big shells. 

I tried to talk past the lump in my throat of 
the wonderful service he and his comrades in 
that lonely camp were doing for the mothers 
and wives of the fallen heroes. "Well now, 
you know, it's interesting at that," he replied 
with the American lad's spirit of making the 
best of it and dislike of being fussed over. 
" We start out sometimes and find a body but 
not a trace for identification. But we just won't 
give up. We plough all over the ground again 
and again and pretty soon some one yells 
' found a sock with J. A. on it ' and we keep 
right on till we find the disk with his name." 
The boyish face glowed in the flickering light 
from two candles on the rough pine table. 
" Then we know some mother back home will 
be glad we stuck to the job." 

' ' How do the folks at home feel about taking 
the remains back? " was his anxious query. In 
response to my ' ' What do you think about 
it? " he replied: 

' ' It should not be done. If the folks at home 
33 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



had seen what I have they would not want it. 
Our boys ought really to lie where they fell, 
but as that is out of the question, we are plac- 
ing them in American cemeteries and they 
should be allowed to rest there. One grave that 
we moved recently had been cared for con- 
stantly by an old Frenchwoman who had lost a 
son in the war. She was heartbroken when we 
moved the grave of her American soldier. 
These French people are devoted caretakers of 
the American graves." 

This opinion of a fellow-pal I found general 
sentiment. There is a bill being introduced in 
congress for the removal of our hero dead to 
American soil that has been called l ' The Under- 
taker 's Delight." But the Eoosevelts are set- 
ting a good example by leaving in France the 
body of their son, Quentin Roosevelt, whose 
grave is only a few miles from here. 

Back over another road we sped circling Bel- 
leau Woods. Over there is La Loge Farm 
from where General Harbord directed the 
operations of the Marine Brigade. And across 
that way they tell you the Twelfth Field artil- 
lery dashed for the battle, strung their guns out 

34 



TO CHATEAU THIERRY 



into the open fields and fired for seventy hours 
straight without stopping for food or drink or 
sleep. 

It was cold and 6 :30 the next morning when 
we climbed the steep hills of Chateau Thierry, 
between sentinels of battered masonry to the 
heights leading out over the highway for Sois- 
sons. As we entered the car a straggling com- 
pany of German prisoners was going to work. 
They are clearing away the debris. Through 
Bezu St. Germain and we jogged over a rough 
road, lining which were masses of big shells and 
huge piles of boxed ammunition, live ammuni- 
tion still — left by the Boche in their speedy exit 
from that territory. 

The morning was yet young when the car 
stopped and we started afoot through a clump 
of trees at the edge of the Bois du Chatelet to 
view the big gun emplacement secreted there, 
the huge turntable built to hold the Big Bertha 
that was never placed. Tourists will be told 
that this is the site of the big gun that hurled its 
terror-dealing shells into Paris, but instead it is 
the more advantageous position selected later 
and which, had its installation been accom- 

35 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



plished, must have demolished the first city of 
France. Around the emplacement's rusty turn- 
table we could see cleverly camouflaged trees, 
whole trees set in boxes to hide the gun from 
prying airplanes. 

In the next village we saw Austrian prisoners 
at work carting away evidences of shelling over 
a spur of railroad. Here and there people had 
returned to their former homes, and boarded 
up the windows of a single habitable room. 
A peep within the open doors revealed how they 
were pitifully trying to create home atmosphere 
and begin life over again. Always it was the 
old people and the very young children in the 
littered streets. 

Then to Seringes, which is another landmark 
for the Mississippi Valley, the land of the 
Ourcq and the Vesle. For in this area of the 
salient is inscribed the immortal deeds of the 
Forty-second of which our 168th was a part; 
the Thirty-second, the Twenty-eighth, the 
Fourth and the Seventy-seventh divisions. It 
was to this area that the German troops were 
driven in their great retreat from the Marne. 
On the slopes above the river Ourcq, when 

36 



TO CHATEAU THIERRY 



sweltering July turned into August last year, 
the Americans met the arrogant battalions of 
the Prussian Guard. The crossing of the Ourcq, 
the fight that the Forty-second and the Thirty- 
second put on here proved to a skeptical old 
world the unconquerable spirit of the American 
soldier. In the line between Seringes, Sergy 
and Cierges, from those brilliantly defended 
heights, our boys wrote a memorable chapter 
of history, for it was the village of Sergy that 
our splendid Iowa regiment finally captured 
after it had changed hands time and again. 
Right here it was that our Rainbow boys fought 
through from Sergy Heights to Nestles. Prom 
here on it is the ' ' Land of the Allied Pursuit, ' ' 
for from Fere en Tardenois through the charred 
Forest of Fere the Twenty-eighth and Thirty- 
second pushed the Germans to Fismes. 

At Seringes we visited the cemetery in which 
rest 3,885 American soldiers. There are 
straight rows of white crosses, each stenciled 
with the name and regiment, holding at its head 
the identification disk. The graves are evened 
and the tender grass is beginning to grow upon 
them. A beautiful, peaceful spot it was in the 

37 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



light of the summer morning — a large Ameri- 
can flag waving from the center above the field 
of white crosses. In all of these cemeteries 
there are groups of graves marked by the Star 
of David, the resting place of the Jewish soldier 
dead. On entering the Seringes cemetery I met 
an Illinois boy, who was with the detachment in 
charge. Like everyone I met from the home 
states his first question was ' ' How is every- 
thing back home? " 

In the village of Fere en Tardenois we passed 
a German officer in the street looking askance 
after the big American car. There were no 
guards visible. Evidently they had no fear of 
his trying to make a getaway. We crossed a 
bridge leading to the abandoned big German 
supply station that was to have furnished sup- 
plies to the German army right into Paris. 

The road we took out from here ran through 
fields of live shells just as they were left by the 
fleeing enemy. These 75s were arranged in 
close symmetrical oblongs, upright on the 
ground. Embankments had been thrown up on 
either side of each oblong shell bed, and these, 
covered with foliage, served as screens for air- 

38 



TO CHATEAU THIERRY 



planes and shielded surrounding shell beds from 
air bombs. Barbed wire hung vines screened 
the roadway we were traveling over, evidences 
of the camouflage to shield the supply trains 
that had rumbled over the route. Frequently 
we passed groups of deserted camions left from 
the fray. 

It was about 9:30 when we reached poor 
Soissons, the center of the land of the counter- 
offensive. Up to the north-west are what have 
been called the ' ' hills of decision. ' ' This dev- 
astated country was the pivot of four terrific 
days of fighting before the world received the 
news of the German retreat. Here Marshal 
Foch launched his great counter-offensive that 
gave the initiative into the hands of the Allies. 
From far up under Soissons the crushing blow 
came on the enemy making the tremendous 
effort to encircle Eheims. Under the cover of 
storm and darkness that mid-July night the 
American First and Second, with the Moroc- 
cans in the center, began the drive that smashed 
the German lines and saved Soissons. The 
panorama of battlefield about Soissons saw the 
turning point of the war. The first of the 

39 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



Allied offensives was begun from its heights 
above and resulted four months later in the 
armistice. 

In Soissons, in the only building of its main 
street miraculously left standing — we had 
breakfast, poor fare in a room with many marks 
of shelling. It was the town hotel but we 
waited long for water to wash, since now all 
the water must be carted from the Aisne river. 
A group of Japanese officers added a pic- 
turesque touch to the French and American 
uniforms that appeared in the courtyard. 
Across the ten-foot wide cobbled street, heaps 
of mute, crumbled bricks and stone told of 
former buildings. 

The streets of Soissons were alive with hori- 
zon blue clad French poilus and smiling-eyed 
American doughboys, with an occasional resi- 
dent carrying one of those incredibly long 
loaves of French bread. 

Here I met Andre Le Blanc. Andre had spent 
a third of his life amid the harrowing scenes of 
war, since his years numbered but twelve. And 
his proud accomplishment was to imitate, fault- 
lessly, the horn of the American auto car. He 

40 



TO CHATEAU THIERRY 



gathered a grinning bunch of doughboys around 
him as, pursing his lips, he would " honk " for 
us. He remarked without emotion that he had 
lived in a cellar all during the war, with his 
mother and four younger brothers and sisters. 
They had come back to what was left of their 
home two months ago and now his father had 
work as a mason. 

On the road out of Soissons we passed close 
to a German pill box, a concrete dugout where 
the Germans placed their machine guns and 
made them so difficult to dislodge. At Fismes 
we stopped at one of the most beautiful Ameri- 
can cemeteries which holds at present about 
1,500 of our soldier dead. Services were held 
at the American cemeteries on Memorial Day 
in this region and they told me 5,481 wreaths 
were sent out by the Paris Memorial Day Com- 
mittee. 

And then following the Vesle river, which 
is about as wide as Duck Creek, we came 
at high noon to Eheims and its martyred 
cathedral. 

At Eheims we lunched in the mess hall .of 
the Y. hut which stands in a spacious square 

41 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



in the center of the city, where the atmosphere 
was as entirely U. S. A. as on the shores of 
the Mississippi. And that reminds me that it 
was a Bostonian in Paris who told me earnestly 
only the other day that he understood the only 
real Americans came from our middle west. It 
hadn't occurred to me to brag that way, but the 
idea coming from Paris, where they now have 
a tremendous admiration for Americans, even 
those from outside of New York, is rather pleas- 
ant. Here I also found attractive Y. W. 
quarters. 

We wandered about Rheims for an hour, go- 
ing first to visit the cathedral or what is left 
of the majestic edifice. The streets leading to 
the cathedral square are a mass of shattered 
structures and powdered plaster. The build- 
ings are leveled into heaps of debris with an 
occasional hollow-windowed wall looking on dis- 
mally. A movie house had nothing left of its 
once imposing entrance but the sign above, 
' ' Cinema. ' ' The remnants of a handsome show 
window is all that tells of a one time prosperous 
store, all sacrificed to the god of war. Over 
the cathedral itself you marvel. The magnifi- 

42 



TO CHATEAU THIERRY 



cent front arched entrance stands mutilated but 
unyielding, the skeletons of the twin towers 
high above bearing tragic testimony to the aim 
of the enemy gunners. The boarded-up door- 
ways forbade entrance for the work of restora- 
tion is begun. On the high, now barren, pedes- 
tal outside the center doorway they point out 
to you where once stood the golden statue of 
Joan of Arc. It was in this cathedral that all 
the Kings of France were crowned from the 
time when Charles vn was led here by the 
Maid of Orleans herself. Perhaps it was for 
this reason or perhaps because its high towers 
made it a conspicuous target for miles, that 
on its matchless beauty was trained so often 
the wrath of the German guns. But torn by 
shells and consumed by fire it still stands — 
who shall say is it not a wonder of the world? 
Looking back from the road out of the city 
we saw the pointed towers of another church 
apparently unharmed and how most of the de- 
struction had been in the vicinity of the ca- 
thedral. Only once during the four years did 
the Germans get into Rheims and that was but 
for four days in the early months of the war. 

43 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



It was a vineyard lined road to Savenay. 
There were sad memories in the row of black 
and white crosses by the roadside, while beyond 
stretched smiling vineyards in which people, 
bent and old, were tying up the vines. As the 
afternoon sped a wondrous panorama of pic- 
turesque countryside unrolled before us. From 
the high road that coiled above the vine-clad, 
sloping hills we looked upon a fruit valley 
through which far below, like a narrow blue 
ribbon, the Marne waters glistened. Into a 
tree-lined drive and we descended the winding 
road into the enchanting valley and into Eper- 
nay. It is this fruitful valley of the Marne 
that the enemy coveted and though the Marne 
is but perhaps 200 yards here at its widest, the 
Germans only succeeded in crossing it a couple 
of times. From Epernay the road wound 
farther down into the valley to the very shores 
of the river, which we followed for miles, ex- 
claiming at the beauty of the sloping hill-sides. 

But swinging around we came upon ammuni- 
tion stacked in the growing fields, only now it 
was French ammunition placed there for the 
Marne defensive. From here we viewed the 

44 



TO CHATEAU THIERRY 



country like a battle map. Across there to the 
right the Germans had come in hordes through 
gaps in the hills and shelled across the defense- 
less villages, whose quaint old stone buildings 
are pock marked by spraying shrapnel. 

Through Dormans we went, past many cruel 
war marks, and into Crezancy at milking time. 
Passing the quiet little farms it was difficult 
to imagine that milking time of a summer ago 
when this valley was a thing of air bombs and 
gas and echoed with mighty guns. Here it was 
that the Rainbows and the Third, the only two 
American divisions in the long French line on 
both sides of Rheims, opposed the landslide of 
gray clad troops. It is of the Third that it 
has been said that all through 72 hours its bat- 
talions stood in their tracks and killed Germans. 
On every inch of the ground history is written 
in clear American English. 

We returned to Chateau-Thierry in time for 
supper and a very good meal it was in the mess 
hall of the Y. M. C. A., the long frame building 
in the open square on the left bank of the 
Marne. " The United States Place," a grateful 
people call it now. It swarmed with American 

45 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



soldiers and Y. workers. J. Potts Brown, the 
genial, big-hearted director of the Chateau- 
Thierry " Y," welcomed us. He even climoed 
on one of the shaky table benches to get us 
souvenir shells from the strings of German mis- 
siles overhead. Here the French girl talked 
to Fritz, the little German waiter who has en- 
deared himself to the whole " Y. " outfit by his 
willing work. He liked it here, he told her, but 
he had no time to talk even German to her. A 
file of German prisoners, coming from the day's 
work, had passed us as we stopped for gasoline 
on entering the town. The man who brought 
the ' ' petro ' ' to the car said he had been a 
prisoner for four years — that he was as well 
off here as in Germany now. The Germans 
looked well-fed and not unhappy. 

After supper I walked in the sunset over the 
temporary bridge across the Marne. Many 
American soldiers, their grave faces reflecting 
memories, were on the bridge gazing into its 
deep, greenish blue waters. I could shut my 
eyes and see the hail of bullets from the hollow 
windows of those buildings beside me. As I 



46 



TO CHATEAU THIERRY 



walked along, stamping its picture forever in 
my memory, a dear old, white-haired grand- 
mother smiled down at me from one of those 
windows that had so recently framed a machine 
gun. In her smile there was hope, the hope 
these homeless people are taking to start life 
over again. 

Out on the high road we drove swiftly. A 
backward glance showed Chateau-Thierry lying 
in a pocket, deep in the center of the softly- 
rising* hills. Safe at last with her Memories — 
looking toward a new day. 

This whole July afternoon had been one of 
intermittent showers and sunshine and now 
came a heavy downpour of rain. As the sunset 
glowed it brought that perfect half-circle of 
rainbow across the sky, as a symbol of hope for 
this shattered Marne land. Down the wooded 
road came a flock of sheep, and their shepherd, 
in his blue flowing cape, might have stepped 
from an old painting in the Louvre. 

We followed the winding Marne into Meaux 
and thence back to Paris — Paris on tiptoe at 
her first celebration of the Fourth of July, the 



47 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



birthday of the friendly neighbor beyond the 
seas who had sent two million men to her rescue 
— Paris, playing "The Star-Spangled Ban- 
ner " first, followed by the " Marseillaise." 



CHAPTER IV 

IN THE AMBASSADOR'S GARDEN 

Paris, July 5. 

YOU have read how the Glorious Fourth 
was celebrated this year in Paris, as never 
before and how President Poincare of France, 
Gen. Pershing and Marshal Foch, with the 
American ambassador, Hon. Hugh Campbell 
Wallace, reviewed 3,000 American soldiers and 
marines, with as many men from the French 
army and navy, from the Place de la Concorde, 
the great paved square with its marble statues, 
around which Paris, the Beautiful, clusters. 

But perhaps you didn't hear much about the 
brilliant Fourth of July reception held by Am- 
bassador and Mrs. Wallace for all Americans 
in Paris yesterday. It was from 4 to 7 o'clock, 
at their residence, I Avenue d'Eylau. I doubt 
if the stately old trees in the embassy garden 
ever before looked upon just such a scene. For 
cosmopolite Paris, that reflects not France, but 
the whole world, saw here the mingling of the 

49 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



old aristocracy with the new democracy. And 
they really mixed well. 

Ambassador and Mrs. Wallace received alone 
in a handsome salon. And then we passed 
through its high French doors into the walled- 
in garden. An American military orchestra 
played down in one corner of the terrace and 
lent a live background of khaki to the setting. 
Gen. Tasker Bliss, tall and distinguished look- 
ing, was there, the center of an animated group, 
and near him were several French generals and 
then came a Polish general, the purple trim- 
mings of his uniform conspicuous against 
the others. There were Eed Cross workers 
with the U. S. insignia on their shoulders, in 
their trim tailored Norfolk suits, and blue veiled 
Red Cross nurses. Officials of the American 
Y. M. C. A. were sprinkled about. One black- 
frock-coated statesman was 'conspicuous be- 
cause he kept on his high silk hat. 

Someone pointed out the Duke of Montmor- 
ency and reminded me he was a scion of one of 
the proudest of the houses of the old French 
nobility. 

I was introduced to a gray -bearded, fine look- 
50 



IN THE AMBASSADOR'S GARDEN 

ing man who appeared every inch a French- 
man, but he answered my " Do you speak any 
English," with " Well, rather — I lived in Bos- 
ton most of my life." He was B. J. Shoninger, 
former president of the American Chamber of 
Commerce in Paris and, so it was whispered to 
me, the founder of the re-education work among 
the wounded. I noticed on his coat lapel the red 
rosette of the official of the French Legion of 
Honor. I asked when the Americans in Paris 
had organized for this splendid service and he 
said, " Why in 1914 when the war began, "then 
adding with a touch of pardonable pride, " we 
did not wait, mademoiselle, until Washington 
decided to go into the war. We Americans in 
Paris went in at the start." 

A New York buyer strolled up. He didn't 
like Paris at all — was having a slow time, so 
he said. He couldn't speak any French nor 
understand it, so there was no use going to 
theaters. He "hated movies" when I re- 
marked they often have English translations 
on the screen. "These French people are so 
stupid," he complained, to the amazement of 
my French cousin with me. " Now take these 

51 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



cabbies — if you don't pronounce a word exact- 
ly as they do they refuse to comprehend. I 
simply couldn't make one of them understand 
the other day that I wanted to go to the Place de 
la Opera just because I didn't pronounce it 
' Oh-pair-ah ' ! " He told me he had fought at 
St. Mihiel and had been discharged after the 
armistice and had just come back over on a 
business trip. He was disgusted with Paris. 

Then a tall, quiet-voiced French nobleman 
introduced to our little group approached me, 
with, " You are American journalist — ah!" 
adding, " Yes, I once was in New York " — and 
with accents of pride, " Once I had my picture 
in a New York newspaper — in the New York 
Times." I asked him " Why? " since such pub- 
licity might not always be flattering. I had 
to put the query in French " Pourquoi? " be- 
fore he got it. Then he explained he had gone to 
New York to attend a Vanderbilt wedding and 
was to be a guest at the Vanderbilt home, " Bilt- 
more." He recounted, graphically, how the re- 
porter had called on him and why they wanted 
a story about him and his picture. Even a titled 
Frenchman, as you see, was delighted with the 

52 



IN THE AMBASSADOR'S GARDEN 

attention. He told us, this suave nobleman, how 
his chateau outside of Paris had been com- 
pletely demolished in the war; that there was 
nothing left of it. Even the private cemetery, 
in which rested twenty- two of his ancient family, 
had been desecrated by the Germans, who took 
the lead from the caskets. Always there is that 
echo of the war — its tragic undercurrent moves 
through the gayest of throngs. He said he had 
a small villa left close to Paris but the old 
chateau was gone. 

At a long buffet table under a red canopy, 
there in the garden black-garbed, white-gloved 
men deftly served a variety of frappes and ices 
with the cunningest frosted cakes for which the 
French are noted. There were little boat- 
shaped tarts, filled with strawberries or cher- 
ries, a favorite Parisian " bacquet." It is only 
recently that they have these sugared confec- 
tions again in Paris, for they were not to be had 
during the war. 

Among those approaching the tea table was 
a palsied old gentlewoman who looked like she 
must have lived through most of the last stren- 



53 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



uous century. She was gowned in a once hand- 
some, purple velvet, with a cape of royal purple 
brocade falling diagonally from one shoulder, 
and her black jetted small hat had plumes of 
white. She was a member of the old aristoc- 
racy, it was murmured. 

" Guess they like antiques over here — imag- 
ine going to a reception at her age ! ' ' comment- 
ed the New York buyer. 

The man who had lost his chateau bowed 
most profoundly to the granddame in purple 
brocade as he turned to leave us. 

Several extremes in late Parisian modes were 
interesting and the American woman who has 
lived the last twenty years in Paris remarked : 
' ' You can recognize all the American women 
who have just come over — their gowns are 
longer than those of the women who live in 
Paris." Her daughter who stood demurely at 
her side told me she had spent much time in 
New York, but could not call herself an Amer- 
ican, unfortunately, because she had been born 
in Paris. "And that over here makes her 
French — even if we are Americans," re- 
marked her mother. 

54 



IN THE AMBASSADOR'S GARDEN 

And so the wind whispered softly through the 
great trees of the embassy garden, above the 
changing throng of celebrities; whispered of a 
historic past and a marvelous present. Offi- 
cers of the army and navy of the allied world, 
mingled with American welfare workers, states- 
men and business men, brought together in 
Paris through the great war, and for the mo- 
ment a part of the Paris- American colony. And 
here in the light of the peace, far from the 
homeland, they seemed to symbolize the dawn- 
ing of a new social day, when the culture of the 
old world and the culture of the new world meet 
on a common ground, all a part of the modern 
world democracy. 

"But the American who said we Parisians 
are stupid — what you think of him?" asked 
my French cousin as we left. 

" Well, we could call him rude for saying that 
to you," I told her frankly. 

"Ah, then that was not American," was her 
satisfied comment. 

They are making such an effort to under- 
stand us Americans over here, these dear 



55 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



French people, and to think only the best of 
us. And our ' l say what you think ' ' candor is 
disconcerting at times to a people whose first 
law is politeness. 



56 



CHAPTER V 

ABOUT PAUL 

Paris, July 11. 

THIS is about Paul. 
Paul is the tall, slim, eager kid, in the 
black dining room clothes, high white collared, 
at the first table to the right as you enter. Prob- 
ably you would not recognize him by that name 
if you stopped at this hotel. You would call 
him " Garcon," which is the name he answers 
to just as every American waiter responds to 
the call of ' ' George. " " Paul, it is my little 
name, ' ' he told me yesterday morning, after he 
had served my coffee, from which I deducted he 
meant his given name. You have to be good 
at guessing over here, too. Our acquaintance 
begun the first morning when Paul expressed 
his unbiased opinion of water as a breakfast 
beverage. I tried to draw him out about the 
war gradually, but, like all French people, he 
was very taciturn. Oh yes, he had served four 
years. " But it is over now and I like not to 

57 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



talk about it. I try to forget," he had side- 
stepped the subject, with a shrug of his shoul- 
ders. I felt sure he had courage, because if he 
ever attacked the Boches the way he hurdles 
over English he was some good soldier. 

It was while I was searching vainly for a 
wisp of west-of-New York news in the Paris 
edition of an American paper one morning that 
Paul's hesitation-English broke in. "Much 
troubles in Italy," he observed. I was scan- 
ning a three line item on some place in Illinois 
that I'd never heard of, so murmured, absently, 
"That so?" 

" Oh, bad troubles there," he said. 

"What's the matter with Italy?" I asked, 
finding the cafe raid he referred to. 

' ' Maybe we have war with Italy now, ' ' he 
remarked, blithely. 

" Haven't you had enough war? " I observed. 
He had told me how, when the weather was 
damp, his throat still bothered him from the 
gassing. 

"Sure, I had enough," he answered, "but 
comes another war, I go again." 

" The Italians claim they won the war three 
58 



ABOUT PAUL 



times," I hazarded. Like a match Paul flared. 

1 ' Italy not won the war — we could got along 
without Italy." 

""Well, how about America?" I asked. 
" Could you have gotten along without the 
Americans ? ' ' 

"If America not come to help us," he re- 
sponded, earnestly, ' ' you and me not be here 
today in this hotel — there be no Hotel Plaza 
Athenee, maybe." 

Then Paul started in to tell me about the 
war as it came to him, a poilu in horizon-blue, 
stationed with a battery back of the front line 
trenches on the night of the big attack beyond 
Rheims. He took a paper pad from his pocket 
and drew a circle for Rheims and showed me 
how they were holding the line against the on- 
coming wave of Germans. 

1 ' I never forget the night of Julie fourteen 
last year — never," he said. " Two days be- 
fore, my captain he say, ' The Germans they 
attack us tonight,' and I wait and they not 
come. I not officer — private, yes — but I carry 
letters always — how you say it? Ah, messen- 
ger — but I always with officers. And I laugh 

59 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



at my captain and I say, ' You say Germans 
they come yesterday night and they not come. ' 
And my Captain he say, ' Wait. ' We been in 
that sector now two weeks and the Germans 
just across from us and we say to ourselves, 
' ah, we have fine sector, these Germans not 
fight.' And I wait on the 13th and all day on 
the 14th and nothing happen. And the Captain 
he say, ' Wait. ' And that night when I sleep a 
little — they call me — the Germans come ! 

"And the captain he say, ' Quick get my 
papers from the barracks — and take them back 
to where safe. And tell them to bring up horses 
for the guns. ' You see we fear we must go back 
and we want to get guns to safety. 

" So I go into barracks and get papers, the 
shells falling all around. Hardly I out of bar- 
racks two minutes when a shell hit just where 
I take papers from. I climb on my horse and 
ride back fast. And then I tell them to hurry, 
bring up horses for our guns and I lead way 
back. Twelve horses, you know, for each gun. 
Eighty horses or more we must bring. A man 
ride one and lead one. And always I go first to 
show the way. Always we go along side of 

60 



ABOUT PAUL 



road — pick our way in dark, because always 
Boche shell that road — they know we come that 
way, to take our guns back. And airplanes 
drop bombs on road and shoot at us. I come 
back and Captain he say, ' Go look at your bed, ' 
and where I sleep yesterday night all full of 
wreck of building — terrible! No, they not get 
our guns — but the Germans come four kil- 
ometers that time (a kilometer is % of a mile). 
Oh, how long? Four days that battle last." 

' ' How did you like the American soldiers 
you met? " I asked. 

" Oh, I like American soldier fine," he re- 
plied, ' l but always they have not much money. ' ' 

' 'Well, you see, Paul, they 1 only get $30 a 
month, our soldiers — how much did you get ? ' ' 

" Twenty-five centimes a day," said Paul 
(about five cents in our money), " but when we 
at the front we get three francs a day ! "We get 
one franc in money and two francs in stamps. 
Later we get the money for the stamps! " 

This morning when I went down to breakfast, 
one of the head factotums was running the ele- 
vator and he remarked, ''Quiet in the hotel 
this morning — not? We have strike. Every- 

61 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



body they go away, the valets de chambre, the 
femmes de chambre, the waiters, everybody. 
No one is work." 

In the dining room a chap in a grey business 
suit had Paul's place by the long window at 
the right. The maitre d 'hotel tried to explain 
it to me. Their employes were not dissatisfied, 
they were well paid with their wages and tips, 
but they belonged to a union and the order had 
come to walk out. The union demands an eight 
hour day and a percentage of the hotel receipts, 
instead of tips. They ask that the hotels add 
an extra ten or fifteen percent to the bill of the 
guest for Ci porboire " or tips, and thus elimi- 
nate the bane of the tourist abroad. 

So the committee of the strikers had come 
this morning and had taken Paul away with the 
rest. I suppose he spent the day on the streets, 
watching the progress of the elaborate decora- 
tions along the avenues of the triumphal way, 
through which the victorious poilus of France 
will march under the Arc de Triomphe in the 
Place of the Star in the Victory Fete parade 
on July 14, Bastile Day, the anniversary of the 
birthday of the French Republic. On the Grands 

62 



ABOUT PAUL 



Boulevards this afternoon it was a novel sight 
to see the big cafes and restaurants closed, the 
wide sidewalks in front of them bare of their 
army of chairs and little tables. Of course it 
is the psychological moment for a strike as 
the city is filled with strangers come for the 
great national holiday Monday. So today the 
people living in the hotels ate pick-up meals 
and found their rooms uncared for. It was 
hardest on new arrivals who had to take rooms 
just as they had been left by the previous occu- 
pants. And many of these newcomers were 
American, English, Italian and Spanish trav- 
elers who had come to Paris expressly for the 
Victory fete. 

Tonight at dinner Paul was back on the job. 
Not as dapper as usual, but smiling and serene. 
Word has been posted in the hotel that dinner 
would be served only at seven o'clock and 
seated at one long table down the center of the 
room the guests made the best of the situation. 
As in most of the big hotels only the cold 
viands from the buffet were to be had. Paul 
regaled us with a description of the attack on 
the Cafe de la Paix made by a mob of 500 

63 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



people. Outside, the big iron gates were closed 
before the entrance. It is a nervous strain fear- 
ing a mob attack. If it were known that the 
hotel help served there would be trouble. One 
of the guests related how a couple of months 
ago there was a strike which tied up all traffic 
and he had to walk miles to a depot to get a 
train ; no cars or taxis were running. 

So you see there is something doing every 
minute here. And one learns to smile and make 
the best of it. The war taught these people pa- 
tience and how to endure. And you must ad- 
mire the splendid spirit of those living here 
through those four years of war, as Paul did, 
who are now trying to forget it and tackling the 
harrowing problems of the present. 



64 



CHAPTER VI 

THE VICTORY PARADE 

Paris, July 14. 

THE flood tide of gratitude of five million 
human hearts vent itself in stirring salvos 
and cheers this morning in Paris when the 
flower of the French army and her Allies 
marched in triumph through the city. It was 
the ' ' Day of Glory ' ' — the Day of Days. Paris 
set a new standard in victory fetes. Never 
before has there been equaled such a triumphal 
pageant as this, of warriors returned from the 
fiercest and noblest war in history, and never 
has there been equaled the magnificence of set- 
ting that Paris gave to the victors. And it will 
never be equaled again. This is the greatest 
joy day in the history of France. 

It is sixty years since Paris last tasted the 
sweets of victory over her foes. In 1859 she 
last welcomed her sons home from war as vic- 
tors. A life-long resident of Paris told me he 
remembered when a little boy having been taken 

65 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



to see the procession of the victorious French 
army on its return from the war with Italy, and 
' ' Now I live to see this great day ! ' ' 

Four long years of suffering and six months 
of waiting crystallized into this one morning for 
France, when here in the city of her pride the 
homage of the nations could be paid to her de- 
fenders. ! 

But it was the poilu, the French private in 
horizon-blue, who was the hero of the hour for 
France. All honor was paid to the intrepid 
leaders, but the millions of spectators demon- 
strated repeatedly their affection for the man 
in the ranks. The hearts of the multitude went 
out to him as the symbol of the great, invisible 
army he represented. As he marched under 
the Arch of Triumph they saw in him all those 
who could not be here to share in the victory, 
those for whom the stately cenotaph had been 
erected, a memorial to the glorious dead, that 
they might be there in spirit, having a part in 
the reward their sacrifice had made possible. 

Paris had done herself proud in decorating 
the line of march. The mile-long center motor- 
way of the Champs-Elysees from the Arc de 

66 



THE VICTORY PARADE 



Triomphe to the Place de la Concorde is a rain- 
bow of fluttering colors. Beautiful large me- 
dallions, each bearing a symbolical figure and 
the name of a battle in which French troops 
fought gloriously, are upheld by high, white, 
twin pillars all along the way. Between these 
pylons swing in the breeze the French colors, 
festoons of waving pennants, flags of the allied 
nations and colored incandescent lights. The 
imposing buildings on the thoroughfare, behind 
the line of trees, are colorful with allied flags 
and bunting and at night are jeweled with 
lights. Everywhere the Stars and Stripes and 
Union Jack wave with the Tricolor of France. 
Half way down the avenue, in opposite parked 
circles, known as Round Point, hundreds of cap- 
tured German cannon had been piled in high 
tangled heaps, like so much junk, and surmount- 
ing each huge mass is the gold triumphant 
" Coq Gaulois," the French cock, that repre- 
sents France as the eagle does the United States 
and the lion does England. 

Tiers of wooden seats had been erected on 
both sides of the avenue and last evening when 
I passed them they were already filled with 

67 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



people who had come to spend the night in order 
to have good seats for the morning review. All 
night they kept their vigil in the streets. The 
patience of the Paris crowd is marvelous. Be- 
fore them on the avenue impromptu balls and 
singing groups made the night scene festive. 

It was before six this morning when the young 
French girl and I started for the Hotel Crillon 
where, in the American Press headquarters, a 
special card, obtained through miles of red 
tape, entitled me to a place at a window. By 
the time we reach Concorde, which is the way 
you refer to it if you have lived close to its 
majestic, statuary-circled and fountain-centered 
atmosphere radiating from the Egyptian 
column, it was a solid mass of people. Just 
across this paved square was the entrance to 
the Crillon, and at that moment as easy to 
reach as the moon. The crowd was a stone 
wall, impenetrable. We would get through for 
a few feet only to come upon a camp-chaired 
group that no amount of persuasion would 
budge. The camp-chair parties were out in full 
force. A folding camp-chair might be an ap- 
preciated farewell gift for any one going 

68 



THE VICTORY PARADE 



abroad. It is the only thing my friends for- 
got to give me. And I didn't know there had 
been so many stepladders made as I saw in the 
throng this morning. One of the hotel em- 
ployes told me he had a stepladder and had 
refused two hundred francs for it. Windows 
along the avenue brought fabulous sums. Those 
of one building sold for 30,000 francs and the 
money was donated to the work of wounded 
soldiers' shop. One balcony brought as much 
as 100,000 francs. I had been given another 
card to a window near the Etoile,, but it would 
have been impossible to reach there. 

Finally for fifteen francs apiece, we pur- 
chased standing room on one of those two- 
wheeled, railed truckster's carts, you have seen 
in French-life pictures, from where we had a 
good view over the heads of the crowd at the 
point where the Champs Elysees opens out into 
the Place de la Concorde. Our fellow-truck- 
sters turned out to be interesting people eager 
to help the ' ' American Mademoiselle ' ' under- 
stand the great spectacle. So I found more 
atmosphere than at the press headquarters, 
for I was in the midst of French life. There 

69 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



was a charming Frenchwoman who spoke Eng- 
lish well; a young French lieutenant (only gen- 
erals and colonels got into the parade outside 
of the picked companies of the regiments) ; a 
Frenchman and his family from a hundred 
miles distant who had come expressly for this 
fete and had been there since 4 o'clock in the 
morning — the eight-year old boy and his father 
were the cheer leaders — and a middle-class 
French couple, the man holding his Paris paper 
before him and proclaiming the notables as 
they appeared. It was a regular army and navy 
''Who's Who" that he read, since only the 
most distinguished leaders were in the victory 
procession. 

Perched in the trees around us were as many 
men and boys as each would hold. Every lamp- 
post and statue was a vantage point and the 
roofs and cornices of buildings were alive with 
people. Near us stands, carts, trucks and step- 
ladders held their full quota and more. Our 
truckster had several carts and he did a land 
office business, the price advancing as the hour 
approached. 

Every little while a platoon of the wounded 
70 



THE VICTORY PARADE 



and maimed soldiers of France hobbled past 
and the crowd expressed its sympathy in 
cheers. Once it was a straggling group of blind 
led by that was given an ovation. 

The start of the great spectacle was heralded 
by a salvo of guns from the Invalides and they 
boomed continuously during the hours until its 
conclusion. ' ' Voila ! Voila ! ' ' yelled the small 
boy, which means " Oh, Lookee," and our ob- 
servation cart almost turned turtle in the ex- 
citement. But after the excess of hangers-on 
had been extracted, by the irate truckster, from 
its wheels and handles and sides, it righted 
itself. 

It was almost 9 o'clock when there came a 
fanfare of bugles and the brilliantly-capari- 
soned, mounted Garde Eepublicaine appeared. 
Then ' ' Vive Foch ' ' rang out for the com- 
mander-in-chief of the Allied armies and " Vive 
Jofr* re ' ' as the great marshal 's distinguished 
figure on horseback followed. Marshal Foch, 
in courtesy to his senior, kept his horse 's head 
just in the rear of that of Marshal Joffre. All 
eyes followed them trying to realize what 
their genius had accomplished in saving the 

71 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



world. Close behind came the great general 
staff. 

And then the lone horseman in khaki, a 
dominating figure, erect and soldierly he rode, 
the commander-in-chief of the American armies. 
1 ' Generale Pershaing, ' ' yelled the Frenchman 
holding up the small boy. Then ' ' Une, deux, 
trois," (one, two, three) " Rah, Generale Persh- 
aing — Vive Armee Americaine." There was 
no more distinguished figure in all that chivalric 
procession than our General Pershing. He 
looked like the stern-featured, kindly-eyed por- 
trait we all recognize. And with him were our 
Yankee boys. Proud stepping, heads up, and 
looking straight ahead they were and how 
splendidly they marched ! It was not with dry 
eyes that I watched them, that inspiring com- 
pany in olive drab with assuring swing, in per- 
fect step with their march music, while all 
around me the emotional French were express- 
ing their admiration in that unspellable 
monosyllabic ' ' Wall ' ' with which they cheer, 
and with waving hats and handkerchiefs. And 
the lump stayed in my throat long after the 
American boys went by, after the blue of our 

72 



THE VICTORY PARADE 



handsome, brisk-stepping Jackies had disap- 
peared in the flutter of colors. "Ah, Marine 
Americaine," came from all around me and 
was echoed from the topmost branches of the 
leafy trees and carried down the avenue. 

" See, it is your marine," exclaimed the 
French girl, " You know? " 

" Yes, I know," I said, with a catch in my 
voice, "they brought our soldiers over." 

I wish that the people in every home in our 
United States that sent a soldier or a sailor 
to the colors might have seen them and heard 
the homage paid to them at this moment. Nine- 
teen months of heart anguish of loved ones 
three thousand miles away was compressed into 
that single moment for every American spec- 
tator. What it had meant to the world that 
they had braved submarine-infested waters to 
come to the aid of a persecuted land in the 
name of Democracy, in the name of Humanity ! 
The last of the great world powers to enter the 
fight it was a fitting recognition of their coming 
from afar that they should be first at the head 
of the line in the processional of Victory. 

And then came the smiling Belgians with the 
73 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



regimental flags that saw glory at Liege, the 
Yser and Ypres. 

Field-Marshal Sir Douglas Haig led the 
British contingent, flanked by the Canadian, 
New Zealand and Australian commanders. 
Eight grave and turbaned Hindu warriors fol- 
lowed Marshal Haig and his staff. Then came 
Italy, Poland, Greece, Serbia, Czecho-Slavia 
and the smaller nations in their order. Arabs, 
Moroccans, Bedouins, Africans, Japanese, a 
colorful picture they made in their varied uni- 
forms and Oriental dress in the brilliant sun- 
shine. Thus, the East and the West, they 
marched together, foretelling the new day. 

And then after her Allies came France ! And 
a new and greater sea of enthusiasm broke 
loose, wave on wave, as representatives of each 
division with tattered and battle-scarred colors 
went by. At their head rode the youthful Mar- 
shal Petain, commander-in-chief of the French 
army. Graceful and well he rode, acknowledg- 
ing the continuous ovations with military salute. 

" General de Castelnau," the Frenchman 
shouted and the commanding figure was a sig- 
nal for special cheers. " He lost three sons in 

74 



THE VICTORY PARADE 



the war," one of my cart neighbors murmured. 
Can you imagine what heartache it meant for 
that distinguished father to ride through the 
Arc de Triomphe up there at the Etoile, past 
the glittering cenotaph with its heroic figures of 
Victory inscribed " To the Dead for the Coun- 
try " with its urns of incense burning in 
memory, the monument whose base was hidden 
with flowers? Erect he rode. A strain of 
tender sympathy was felt through the ovation. 
Yet not a one of the cheering throng but had 
memories, too. 

There were shouts of delight for square- 
jawed General Mangin, who had tenaciously 
held the Germans at the final phase of the war, 
when he appeared at the head of the Colonial 
troops. The one-armed General Gouraud was 
given a great reception. And so each general 
was recognized and his name passed from lips 
to lips, and it surged into a sea of acclamation 
as their poilus appeared. As the soldiers in 
French uniform and those recently demobilized 
in the crowd would recognize their regimental 
colors there was a cheer started for the regi- 
ment. 

75 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



And among the shell-fringed and frayed 
battle flags carried by there were those, too, 
under which none now living fought. They 
were the " Colors of the Dead." For during 
the four years of slaughter, regiments had been 
wiped out, reformed and again completely an- 
nihilated. Only their number remained in 
memory with that tattered flag carried now by 
strangers. It was these flags that spoke 
loudest of the two million who fell that France 
might live. Is it any wonder they were the 
signal for reverent cheers? 

The French navy delegation came and Ad- 
miral Ronarch on foot was specially acclaimed. 
The French guns as they passed were the sig- 
nal for glad outbursts and the camouflaged 
tanks that brought up the rear, were given a 
full meed of praise. 

The parade was two hours passing us. 
Twenty thousand picked men of the nations 
were in the line of this final scene of war, 
heralding the new world peace. 

This afternoon the streets were thronged 
with a mass of merry-makers, the side-walks of 
the Grands Boulevards overflowing into the 

76 



THE VICTORY PARADE 



streets. All Paris walked; since it was the 
people's holiday. Both the use of phones and 
telegraph were forbidden, unless official and 
urgent. I walked several miles in order to 
get my cable through from the Bourse. 

The scene tonight is a repetition of the 
night before, the streets ablaze with lights and 
filled with happy people. 

The Hotel de Ville or City Hall is magnifi- 
cently decorated. In the open air stand at the 
entrance, yesterday afternoon the Marshals 
Joffre and Petain were presented with swords 
of honor in the presence of President Poincare 
and a brilliant company. 

The wide square before this City Hall is gaily 
adorned with Venetian masts and flags, out- 
lined in colored lights. A monumental portico, 
artistically draped, is at the entrance of the 
Avenue Victoria. On the two circular graveled 
places of the square people dance their joy 
beneath the fluttering flags and bunting. Those 
circular plots, tonight the scenes of rejoicing, 
I was reminded were once the ' ' Place of 
Graves," for it was on this spot, in olden 
days, that criminals were pilloried, burned and 

77 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



hung. But that was 200 years ago, long before 
the guillotine was invented that did its deadly 
work on what is now the Place de la Concorde, 
now the Place of Concord and Peace. So joy 
treads tonight in light measures where heavy- 
footed tragedy once moved. The Paris Hotel 
de Ville was almost destroyed by fire at the 
time of the Commune that swept away the 
Palace of the Tuileries. It is now an imposing 
structure, there on the banks of the Seine, and 
its square is one of the gala places of the 
Victory fete. 

The most marvelous of the city building 
illuminations is perhaps that of the Louvre, 
not the gallery of arts, but the department 
store near by that bears the name. The block 
long front is a mass of colored electric lights. 
Over the entrance are the words ' ; The Glory of 
France Eternal — In Glorious Memory of Those 
who Died for Her." The Allied flags over it 
are aflame in colored lights set around the seal 
of Paris. Above is the Croix de Guerre in in- 
candescents and at the cornice the chantecleer 
of France blazes in triumph. Along its heights 
are the names of battlefields that are now land- 

78 



THE VICTORY PARADE 



marks of French history, framed in light. This 
typifies the modern commercial spirit paying 
tribute to its historic setting and time. 

This was how Paris celebrated the world vic- 
tory, as befitted her place as the World City, 
and rejoiced at the new era of Peace, the New 
Day ahead. 



79 



CHAPTER VII 

WITH A HOUSE PARTY IN THE CITADEL OF VERDUN 

July 23. 

I HAVE been in the " Citadelle " of Verdun! 
Yesterday I saw with my own eyes the 
meaning of those charged- with-glory words that 
Verdun gave to the world, " On Ne Passe 
Pas " (They shall not pass). And I saw the 
cost. The Germans came to within two and a 
half miles of the citadel of Verdun and took 
two of the grim, outlying forts that circle like 
a fan to guard the underground stronghold. 
But in all the four years they never were able 
to reach the citadel itself. For a whole right- 
eous earth today Verdun symbolizes " On Ne 
Passe Pas." 

Climbing over the top of the Fort de Vaux, 
I saw the battlefield where the French distin- 
guished themselves in its brilliant defense and 
in its recapture and I descended through its 
winding passages, banked with shells. In a 
walk of over a mile across the field of Douau- 

80 




Ruirii. of a Factory at Berry au Bac at the Foot of Hill 108. 




Dugout we entered at Berry au Bac. 



IN THE CITADEL OF VERDUN 

mont, on a two foot wide, trestled, ammunition 
track, mud-slippery, I saw whitening human 
bones and a dead man's shoe, on a landscape 
that had been churned not once but many times 
in battle. I was taken through the great fort 
of Douaumont, which defended so valiantly the 
key to the citadel, and I stood within its stone 
walled room that only a few months ago was 
a thing of harassed officers and of maps and 
telephones and hurried couriers. And there 
the maps and plans of battle still lay on the 
desks. Trying to trace out that last attack, I 
felt the thrill of what it must have meant with 
the shells muffled shrieking overhead. I saw 
the spot where seven French soldiers were killed 
there in a corridor when a shell crashed in and I 
looked through the jagged opening in a parti- 
tion wall to a hollow where twenty-seven Ger- 
mans were blown up by the explosion of one 
French shell. And a little farther on they take 
you up a road at the summit of which is a tall 
cross, and point out where a French host, fight- 
ing in the trenches, were all buried alive by 
an explosion and show you their guns still stick- 
ing up through the ground. For Verdun is the 

81 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



great shrine of France today. And then, as one 
of a party of guests of the Commandant of the 
Citadel, Lieut. Colonel Sarot, I found out 
what delightful hospitality could be dispensed 
in an underground fortress. 

Through the courtesy of the French Maison 
de la Presse in Paris, I was privileged to be one 
of a party of an official Norwegian Mission, on 
a two days' trip to Verdun, as guests of the 
French Government. 

The party of nine, with the military inter- 
preter, Lieut. Pierre Favary, included a former 
Minister of Justice of Norway, a Norwegian 
consul, a secretary in the ministry of justice, 
two charming Norwegian women, and an Amer- 
ican physician, Dr. Julien A. Gehrung of St. 
Louis and New York, medicin aide major in the 
French army, the inventor of a successful treat- 
ment for gas used by the French government 
and our own. The correspondent of the London 
Chronicle was to have been a member of the 
party, but evidently missed the train. Reserved 
compartments in trains, the auto trip around 
Rheims and on to Chalons, and thence by train 
to Verdun, entertainment in the citadel, with a 

82 



IN THE CITADEL OF VERDUN 

luncheon at Rheims and dinner on the train 
last night were among the many courtesies 
shown the party by the French government. 

Upon our arrival at Verdun Monday evening 
at 8:15 we were met at the station by Com- 
mandant Major Anirepoque, who was our dis- 
tinguished guide throughout. Solicitous for 
every member of the party from that moment 
until he bade us adieux yesterday afternoon at 
the door of the coupe of the Paris train, he left 
nothing undone. He accompanied us on the 
motor trips to the forts, explaining the engage- 
ments simply and tersely. 

Three French gray service autos were wait- 
ing outside the Verdun depot to convey our 
party to the citadel. Now, if you have a grain 
of romance Verdun citadel will appeal to you 
because it has a deep moat surrounding it, 
crossed by a picturesque drawbridge, that is 
reached through a towered old gateway. If 
you remember your " Ivanhoe " you can visu- 
alize the moated stronghold and the knights 
of old riding across the drawbridge on pranc- 
ing chargers. Today we whirled over it to the 
wheezy cut-out of the gray autos and in through 

83 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



a city of skeleton walls and tumbling buildings. 
Verdun, the city, was almost entirely destroyed 
in the attempts to force the citadel. Along the 
narrow streets a few shops are bravely trying 
to make a stand. Inside the broken shell of one 
store room gleamed rows of bright tin-ware, 
arranged for sale. Heads protruded inquir- 
ingly from windows here and there along the 
route as the cars whizzed by. Wherever a 
whole shutter fitted to a window it was a sign 
of a returned occupant, one who had crept back 
to the old hearth. 

The American doctor was saying ' ' I shall 
never forget the first time I saw Verdun. By 
George, it got me. I turned away thinking the 
two French officers accompanying me wouldn't 
notice my tears, but quietly one turned to the 
other and remarked : ' Our good friend here 
has just saluted Verdun. ' And they both saluted 
me." Perhaps that little incident from an 
American who saw much in his two years in the 
French service as a chief surgeon will tell you 
better than any words of mine how it feels to 
enter Verdun. Cold-hearted, indeed, is he 
who does not know the choke of sympathy 

84 



IN THE CITADEL OF VERDUN 

for this brave little city, with once its barracks 
for 23,000 soldiers, that bore the brunt of the 
enemy's guns,, but saved its beloved fortress. 

Into a wide circle we whirled and then we 
were before the huge vaulted doorway of this 
grim sixteenth century fortification. It was like 
a picture out of a volume of ancient knight- 
hood — this vaulted doorway going into the side 
of a steep, straight-up, stone bluff. This was the 
place where modern knighthood had set a new 
pace in chivalry. It blocked the path of Ger- 
man might. It was the shield of France. It 
gave us a new synonym for invincible. A couple 
of horizon-blue clad sentries saluted the of- 
ficers with us. Through the wide door, along 
a narrow stone passage-way single file and then 
into a great vaulted corridor, reaching into the 
shadows of a dim distance, with an occasional 
electric light piercing the gloom. This part of 
the fortress is more modern than the remainder, 
having electric light and steam heat. 

We women of the party were conducted to a 
suite of rooms in a side corridor where we 
were pleasantly surprised at many little home 
touches. There were white linen sheets on the 

85 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



army cots, a large mirror over a simple table, 
that held the bowl and pitcher, a writing table 
and an armchair of quaint old pattern. A brass 
shaded electric reading lamp on the table, a 
counterpart of one on my desk in Davenport, 
made me rub my eyes. But it was damp and 
chill here for no sunshine had ever penetrated 
these earthen and stone walls. And the tramp 
of marching feet along distant corridors re- 
minded me that I was in Verdun. 

Called for dinner we were ushered into the 
dining-room of the commandant of the citadel, 
Lieut. Col. Sarot, who came in shortly after we 
were seated and gave us a hearty welcome. In 
delightful French lie told us to make ourselves 
entirely at home and added that he would be 
with us next day at luncheon. A delicious 
dinner it was, and formally served on white 
china, monogramed with the letters " V. C. M." 
(Verdun Citadel Mess) in the French colors. 
It was eleven o'clock when our party arose from 
the table after toasting France, United States 
and Norway, giving each such a rousing ' ' hur- 
rah, ' ' ending with ' ' zip, ' ' that it brought the 
startled face of the table orderly to the door. 

Now, because it is unusual to be a member 
86 



IN THE CITADEL OF VERDUN 

of a fortress house party and in this fortress 
whose glory will ring down the centuries to 
come, and because a hasty glimpse, the next 
noon, of names inscribed in the Colonel's guest- 
book — President Poincare of France, King Al- 
bert of Belgium and Henry Van Dyke, the lat- 
ter with an original poem — told me that the 
great of the earth had sat at this board, I want 
to picture that wonderful dining-room to you. 

It is not a large room — the table seats twelve 
with just enough space left for service. The 
bricked walls are tinted a soft white with a dado 
of grey, edged with a stripe of gold at the base 
and the ceiling is vaulted. The wall at the 
left of the entrance door has a large gold- 
framed mirror, above which is the motto, " On 
Ne Passe Pas." And like a rainbow bower 
over the words are grouped large silk flags of 
all the Allies, their gold pointed tips meeting 
in a bow topping the slogan. The flags reflect 
themselves in the background mirror and again 
in an exquisite six by nine foot mirror on the 
opposite wall, that has a wonderful antique 
gold frame. 

To the right of this latter mirror hangs the 
87 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



Verdun Cross of Honor, a huge war cross in- 
scribed with the words : " Honneur et Patrie " 
(Honor and Country). To the left of the mir- 
ror is a laurel wreath in metal with the words 
" Valeur et Discipline," and above it, in brass, 
the crossed cannons and the anchor. Before 
this, a standard of flags fills the corner of the 
room. The narrower Avails of the oblong apart- 
ment bear each two shining cuirasses, the 
sword hilt at the top of each surrounded by 
gleaming bayonet points. On the wall, to the 
right of the door, these cuirasses flank the coat 
of arms of Verdun, surmounted by the " Coq 
Gaulois," the French cock crowing in victory, 
and over this, most significantly, were only two 
flags, the French tricolor and our Stars and 
Stripes. In a wall case at the opposite end of 
the room I caught sight of medals and the guest 
book. Above it, made attractive by the glitter- 
ing breast plates at the sides, were two small 
oils of Verdun scenes. And surmounting all 
was a picture that held the eye — I don't recall 
the artist — you have probably seen it — a dog 
baying at dusk over the grave of his master, 
that is marked by a simple cross on which hangs 

88 



IN THE CITADEL OF VERDUN 

a battered service hat. It seemed to fit so well 
in this room where the effect is concentrated 
patriotism, valor and loyalty. An electric fan, 
high up in one corner, gave the twentieth cen- 
tury touch. 

It was here that we had luncheon (dejeuner 
they call it) on returning from our visit to the 
outlying forts of the citadel, and in compliment 
to my country I was honored with the place at 
the left of the courtly colonel, with the American 
flag to my right. Colonel Sarot had been com- 
mandant of the citadel since 1916, in command 
through two of its strenuous war years. He is 
a brilliant conversationalist, and was an admir- 
able host. The Norwegian consul, Mr. Klingen- 
berg of Tronjhem, Norway, at the conclusion of 
the luncheon, arose, thanked the commandant 
for his splendid hospitality, and spoke for Nor- 
way, voicing the friendship of his people for 
France and the hope that these friendly rela- 
tions would continue and be ever strengthened. 
Colonel Sarot responded. 

During the course of the meal a big black and 
white dog came in and up to my chair, looking 
at me with great friendly eyes. " He is a good 
dog, ' ' said the Colonel in English. ' ' Dick is 

89 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



his name. " " Is lie the citadel 's dog? ' ' I asked. 
' l He is my dog, ' ' the commandant answered 
proudly. I didn't get a chance to learn of 
Dick's accomplishments, but I saw he was a 
well-brought-up dog since he ate plain, dry, 
dark army bread from the Colonel's hand with 
apparent relish and waited politely to be of- 
fered more. 

When we said our hurried adieux to the 
Colonel, he had a special word for each one. 
He told me that when I came again he was going 
to be able to speak nothing but English to me. 

We whirled away in the grey motor cars with 
the picture of the distinguished Colonel stand- 
ing in the paved circle before the great entrance 
door, in the rain, smiling, and saluting his 
good-bye. 

Forts That Protect Verdun Citadel 

Now to go back to yesterday morning and re- 
count the trip to the Fort cle Vaux and Fort 
Douaumont that safeguarded the Citadel of 
Verdun at such terrific cost, the scenes of the 
most remarkable achievements of the French, 
and on the soil of which is written in blood the 

90 



IN THE CITADEL OP VERDUN 

story of the noblest heroism in the history of 
France. It is not rny intention to write of the 
battles of Verdun, nor of the history of the 
fortress. Every newspaper reader of the last 
five years knows the former and the latter 
can be found easily in every library. But I 
want to show you this mighty stronghold as it 
appears today. 

I remember dreaming I was back home in 
The Times building telling Miss Ade and Mr. 
Kelly about Paris and fussing that none of 
my articles had been published, when I opened 
my eyes. The light was shining in above the 
high, white board partition from the corridor 
outside. Over my head dusky shadows lost 
themselves in the vaulted stone roof. A distant 
clatter of marching feet echoed along the gal- 
leries — a far-away word or command. It is a 
weird feeling to awaken in a fortress if you 
have never tried it. From the next room I 
could hear the soft breathing of Madame Hei- 
berg, who called to me merrily in a few mo- 
ments. 

Realizing anything important is difficult — 
trying at that moment to realize how for four 

91 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



long years these vaulted corridors had echoed 
only to the dread music of cannon and bombard- 
ment was impossible — it was so peaceful now. 
Involuntarily my thoughts returned to Ivan- 
hoe. Rowena must have lived in just such a 
place as this, probably just as damp and 
gloomy. I saw her emerging from that great, 
vaulted entry door in the cliff to mount her 
white palfry in the circular court outside. All 
mediaeval heroines always rode milk-white pal- 
fries. The white palfry that was awaiting me 
outside now I recalled was a gray, mud-spat- 
tered French car, with a smiling poilu, speed- 
demon driver at the wheel. 

After breakfast in the picturesque dining 
room, the three motor cars conveyed our party 
to Vaux. It was pouring rain, raining as it only 
can in France. All along the way we saw the 
havoc of the guns. A few wall fragments and 
a heap of brick marked where once stood a 
village. Open trenches zigzagged through the 
fields on both sides, fields that had seen the 
most terrible carnage of the war. We passed 
innumerable dugouts, where man had burrowed 
in the ground to escape the shells. The earth 

92 



IN THE CITADEL OF VERDUN 

afforded more protection than walls of steel 
and iron. Try to imagine living in a dugout 
for weeks and months — yes, years — as men 
had done here ! 

Arriving at Fort de Vaux we descended from 
the cars and climbed by a circuitous route to the 
top of the fort. There we stood in a cold, driv- 
ing rain to hear the story of the battles that 
had raged in the tragic week of siege and in its 
daring recapture by the French. The ground 
at our feet was ploughed and torn and muti- 
lated. Coming down from the summit we en- 
tered a low door, turned sharply in dark, nar- 
row passages and were in the interior of the 
fort. An occasional wall light helped to show 
the way through the corridors. Down dark 
stairways we went, through caverns stacked 
with shells in neat rows, and, where there are 
still piles of sandbags. What tragedies the wet 
stones at my feet had seen when the pendulum 
of war swung back and forth over Vaux ! Out- 
side I walked up to a cross bearing the French 
cocade. Under this eight men lie buried in one 
grave, Maj. Anirepoque told me. For three 
months from March to June of 1916, Fort Vaux 

93 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



was beleaguered and it was lost for a brief space 
on June 7. Hand to hand fighting occurred in 
its narrow galleries and finally after six clays, 
the French were overcome. Thirst was the real 
conqueror, it is claimed, since the plucky garri- 
son was without water for two days. It was 
during those six days, when the Germans at- 
tacked with jets of flame and liquid fire, that 
the fort, cut off from the world, sent out its last 
carrier pigeon. 

On Nov. 2 the enemy was compelled to aban- 
don Fort Vaux. In that stubborn resistance of 
Vaux is the crux of the French victory. The 
battle of Verdun broke the back of the German 
invasion and Fort Vaux was one of only two of 
the great forts that defended the citadel that 
were ever lost. 

The other was Fort Douaumont that surren- 
dered Feb. 25, 1916, but was regained by French 
troops with irresistible dash on October 24 of 
the same year. By the recapture of these two 
forts, by the counter attack of General Mangin, 
the battle of Verdun became a victory. Later 
Verdun, the unshaken rock, saw barbarism 
thrown back under the victorious thrust of our 

94 



IN THE CITADEL OF VERDUN 

American army at St. Mihiel and Montfaucon. 

On the way to Fort Douaumont we saw a 
heap of tumbled brick and stone, all that is left 
of the town of Fleury which was utterly de- 
molished by the tide of war. The autos stopped 
by the roadside where a trail ran through the 
tortured field, the path marked by a single nar- 
row track, on which was run one of the little 
ammunition trains. The track is scarcely a 
couple of feet wide and we followed it single 
file, for more than a half mile, across deep gul- 
lies and ruts, treading the mud-slippery ties 
gingerly. Signs at the entrance to the roads 
caution people not to go out of the beaten track 
and not to pick up anything on the battlefields ; 
there is still danger from unexploded shells. 
Along the way on both sides, shells, tangled 
barbed wire, broken fragments of artillery, 
trenches, dugouts, and shellholes wrote the 
story of human sacrifice, in the grey light of the 
morning rain. 

With the driving rain in our faces and the 
desolation on every hand it was not hard to 
conjure up the discomfort through which those 
soldiers lived, even when not actually fighting. 

95 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



A Parisian who spent eleven months in the 
front line trenches told me, when I finally per- 
suaded him to speak of the war, that one didn't 
think of the danger — it was the discomfort of 
it all. I had firmly resolved to eliminate 
weather reports from France but the rain pro- 
trudes itself into the picture. I know now why 
our doughboys wrote so often of rain — the 
sunshine of France is very temperamental and 
melts into tears at the most unexpected mo- 
ments. We were spattered with mud almost 
to our knees, every member of the party, and 
a soggy looking bunch when we arrived at 
Douaumont. 

Fort Douaumont is larger and more fully 
equipped than Vaux and contains many tur- 
rets, cupolas and barracks. We went through 
its vast subterranean caverns. In the head- 
quarters room I looked upon the maps and 
charts of the various drives. One, on a wall, 
fastened over others, bore the date, " 10-11-18 " 
— only last October. From here the troops had 
been directed. We peeped in at the telephone 
exchange, too, still a thing of wires and plugs 
that carried the word from the great central 

96 



IN THE CITADEL OF VERDUN 

directing force. We went reverently through 
the chapel, with its Red Cross at the altar, and 
in a room beyond we saw a single stretcher. 
Through a maze of dark, wet, passages there 
came occasionally the light from an embrasure. 
In one corridor I saw a gray cat, evidently the 
pet of the garrison, but pussy refused to be 
more than mildly interested in us. 

The musee, or museum, of the fort we left 
reluctantly. It is filled with war souvenirs, 
enormous shells and belt festoons of little 
shells, fragments of metal, a machine gun, a 
German shotgun. Shelves are filled with 
mementoes of the fateful history of the fort. 
We saw the colonel's gas mask. Two huge 
metal sombreros were the gongs that had 
sounded the gas alarms. 

Back through the battlefield we picked our 
way carefully and were soon driving over the 
rough road that had been shelled so many 
times that little of its once hard, smooth sur- 
face remained. The military chauffeur man- 
aged to miss them if there were many smooth 
places. What an ordeal it must have been for 
the wounded to have been jolted over those 

97 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



roads ! In the ruins of one village as we turned 
a corner swiftly, the Bed Cross appeared on 
a mangled building. Then along a road, from 
which we could see an embankment sieved with 
dugouts, now the empty caves of the modern 
cliff-dwellers. We reached the citadel at noon 
with just time for the dejeuner and to make the 
2 o'clock train back to Paris. 

And so we left the citadel of Verdun 
which has been called the ' ' hinge insuperable 
that Germany could not break." It was the 
eastern bulwark of France, whose stubborn re- 
sistance made possible the victory of the Marne 
under Sarrail and Joffre in 1914. It was the 
grave of the Kronprinz army and the heroic 
town is decorated by President Poincare with 
the star of the Legion of Honor and the war 
cross. 

En route to Verdun on Monday morning we 
went by way of Rheims, of which I have written 
briefly heretofore, and thence by motor to 
Berry au Bac, which is destined to be visited by 
millions of those who will travel far to see this 
war zone in the years 'to come. Speak to a 
Frenchman about Berry au Bac and he draws 

98 



IN THE CITADEL OF VERDUN 

his breath in quickly and says, ' ' Ah, yes, Berry 
au Bac." Fifteen miles from Rheims, it is 
known best perhaps to those who followed the 
news of the war in America as Hill 108. 

Berry au Bac is a white sepulchre. In the 
light of the morning sunshine it was a huge, 
white hill with enormous, jagged hollows and 
gullies and fissures. The ground here has an 
underlayer of white fire clay and stone forma- 
tion that at a distance might be mistaken for 
driven snow. The enemy was strongly en- 
trenched on this hill and the French, tunneling 
underneath, set off mines that made its capture 
possible. The explosions caused this distorted 
upheaval. A narrow, winding path coils about 
over the white tumbled heap of landscape and 
we followed it to its summit. But first we 
entered a dugout at the base, stooping low to 
avoid bumping against the rafters of its roof, 
and turning sharp corners. Matches were 
lighted to see the dark, crude interior in which 
men had lived during long war days and nights. 

Up on the summit of Hill 108 the scene was 
one of glaring white desolation as far as the 
eye could reach. Here and there in descending 

99 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



we had to step carefully, not to become en- 
tangled in the barbed wire that had fallen and 
still lays across the narrow foot trails. At the 
side of the path lay a couple of airplane 
shells. At the foot of the hill, on the farther 
side, was the remains of the shattered Aisne 
canal bed. There is little left of the village of 
Berry au Bac but remnants of walls. By the 
side of the road is the ruins of a large factory, 
the buildings leveled and the machinery a rusty 
wreck, standing out nakedly against the blue 
sky. 

The scene that unwound before us as we 
motored down the road was like a movie reel 
of destruction. For miles just battered build- 
ings, pieces of walls. It looked like pictures of 
the ruins of Pompeii, this harvest of the twen- 
tieth century war. And it was repeated in the 
streets of Rheims. 

Before leaving Rheims I had an opportunity 
of entering the cathedral, to which I had been 
unable to obtain admittance on the previous 
visit. We joined a party of American soldiers 
and sailors who were being taken into the edi- 
fice. This jewel of France is a moving sight, 

100 



IN THE CITADEL OF VERDUN 

its magnificent interior now piles of debris and 
scaffolding, for the workmen are busy saving 
what they can. A railing keeps visitors in 
the big rotunda. The high columns down the 
center appear but little damaged but there are 
great holes in the roof and all the beautiful 
stained glass is gone. Nothing of the great 
altar remained and I could not learn whether 
its art treasures had been removed for safety 
or had been demolished. The wonderful minia- 
ture gems of statuary that stand in the niches 
up the walls inside the great doorway are, 
many of them, broken or damaged and the 
great sculptured figures on the exterior seem 
to each show, on closer examination, a different 
mutilation. But you stand in awe before this 
new grandeur that is visible in its artistry 
through the fragments that remain. 

The 35 mile trip from Rheims to Chalons we 
made by auto. I don't believe they have any 
speed limits here and the driver of the leading 
car was a French woman. I noticed that the 
chauffeur of our car cranked the motor for her, 
but she managed to keep ahead all the way. 
Along the route were many barbed wire en- 

101 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



tanglements. In some places hoops of wire 
stretched across a field. Through these men 
had crawled in the perilous journeys across No 
Man's Land. Ammunition still lay in heaps 
along the roads, great crates of it, and beds of 
live shells. 

On the rail trip from Chalons sur Marne to 
Verdun, we traversed a part of the Argonne 
Forest, which is steeped in memories of the 
heroism of our American army. At one place 
was a wrecked tank. And on a track at a small 
station nearby stood a carload of new farm 
machinery that gave encouraging promise of 
reclaiming the shell-rocked soil. The dense 
Forest of the Argonne made a picturesque 
background. 

We passed one of those box cars, the inscrip- 
tion on which so often infuriated our soldiers. 
It read " Forty men or eight horses." 

At one little station platform an American 
with the Red Cross insignia on his coat sleeve 
was standing. ' ' What would you give, Bud, to 
be on Broadway this minute? " called out the 
St. Louis doctor. The lad's eyes lighted up. 
" Well, a good deal," he laughed, " but I'll be 

102 



IN THE CITADEL OF VERDUN 

there soon." He told us the Red Cross camp 
was near and many mid-western boys — from 
Wisconsin, Missouri and Kansas — had been sta- 
tioned there. ''Didn't have any Iowa boys, 
did you — all they did was to run," joshed the 
American doctor. ' ' You mean they ran at 
them — couldn't hold them back," was my in- 
dignant Hawkeye defense. " Yes, we did have 
lots of Iowans," said the Red Cross boy. And 
our Norwegian friends in the compartment 
looked politely puzzled at U. S. A. state rivalry 
in France and wondered what the argument was 
about. 



103 



CHAPTER VIII 

THE CANTEEN GIEL WHO LISTENED 

Paris, July 25. 
/\ND so the charming young Princess listened 
1 JL to the host of warriors brave — and as she 
listened her dark eyes grew misty with under- 
standing ! 

No, this not a legend. 

It is a cross section out of the actual life of 
an actual American Indian princess, who came 
overseas as a canteen girl with the A. E. F. 

A whole regiment of American doughboys 
fought their battles over for her on the banks of 
the Moselle. From the cook to the colonel they 
told her about them. 

And she listened. 

None of the Indian legends, handed down to 
her from chieftain ancestry, compared with the 
stories she heard from their lips — this attrac- 
tive, gentle voiced, slim y young girl in the trim 
blue-gray uniform with the sailor hat shading 
her blue-black hair. 

104 



THE CANTEEN GIRL WHO LISTENED 

She was the only canteen girl with the entire 
359th infantry of the 90th division when it 
was stationed in Germany, the only American 
girl those soldiers of the Army of Occupation had 
seen since they landed the July before, boys 
who had been in the worst of the fighting at St. 
Mihiel and in the Meuse-Argonne. 

She had charge of four canteens in as many 
German villages. Gen. Pershing himself in- 
vited her to a place beside him on the reviewing 
stand at Wengerohr, when he reviewed the 
troops of the division before they left. He said 
she was the real American. The blood of two 
Cherokee chiefs flows in her veins. 

And her name? At the University of Okla- 
homa, when she was graduated, her diploma 
read Anne Ross, but in Cherokee her name is 
" Princess Galilohi " and she is a daughter of 
Hereditary Chief Robert B. Ross of Tahlequah, 
Okla. Her paternal great-grandfather was 
Gen. John Ross, first chief of the Cherokees, 
when their possessions spread over Georgia, 
North Carolina and Tennessee. The city of 
Chattanooga was formerly Ross Landing and 
the old chief's home in Georgia is still called 

105 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



Rossville, there in the shadow of Lookout 
Mountain. President Jackson sent the Chero- 
kees to Oklahoma in 1835. On her mother's side 
she is descended from Chief Occonstata. Only 
direct descent from chiefs through both parents 
gives an Indian girl the title of princess. 

It was Anne Ross who posed for Zolnay's 
statue of Chief Sequoya, her great uncle, that 
stands in the Hall of Fame in Washington, 
D. C, and she herself unveiled the statue in 
1917. Sequoya, you know, was the inventor of 
the Cherokee alphabet. The Cherokees are the 
only tribe to have an alphabet of their own. 
Quite by accident I met Anne Ross and found 
out who she was yesterday in the cafe of the 
Hotel Petrograd, and coaxed her to tell me 
something of her work with the army. 

" I was stationed at Berncastle on the Mo- 
selle, Germany, for five months — and for the 
first three weeks, well, I just listened," she 
said. " It was pathetic, their need of a girl to 
talk to — they were dying to tell their wonder- 
ful stories. They couldn't tell them to one 
another because each man felt he had been in 
the most thrilling part. So I listened. And 

106 



THE CANTEEN GIRL WHO LISTENED 

such stories as I have heard. Now, there was 
the cook's stoiy. That was vastly different 
from that of the courier — and then the ma- 
chine-gunner — all of them saw their battles 
from a different angle. 

" The cook related to me how he was baking 
pancakes for breakfast during one of those 
terrific attacks and the shells were coming down 
around him so fast that he crawled under an 
embankment for protection. Every few min- 
utes he would jump out and turn the pancakes, 
then dodge back to cover. It was a plain case 
of duty — he couldn't let the batter cakes burn, 
could he?" 

I could not but think of the women at home 
who felt they had done much to save the flour 
— I wondered if they guessed what one regi- 
ment's cook had risked that their boys might 
have pancakes. 

1 ' I tried to get over before the armistice, ' ' 
Miss Eoss said regretfully, "but I was not 
allowed to come, because my brother was in 
overseas service. He is Lieut. Robert B. Ross, 
Jr., and was with the 307th infantry, the 77th 
division. 

107 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



" They were mostly Texas boys with our 
regiment," she continued when I begged for 
more of her experiences, " but there were later 
many replacements from Iowa, Missouri and 
Indiana. I had charge of the canteens at Ursig, 
Kenheim, Rochtig and Reil, there in Germany. 

"Besides listening," she laughed. "I had 
to provide amusements and entertainments for 
the boys. Often I told them Indian legends 
and added Indian songs and dances. Yes, I 
carry a native costume." Miss Ross was on 
the lecture platform with Ernest Thompson 
Seton for a season, interpreting Indian 
legends. 

At the end of May she returned to Paris and 
was sent to the French port, St. Nazaire. " Our 
canteen there was the last to serve our boys 
before they went on board the transports to 
leave France," she said. " Often we had as 
many as 10,000 men a day embarking. There 
were only fourteen of us canteen girls there 
and we worked day and night before a boat 
sailed. For a while, when the tide went out at 
two o'clock in the morning, we were on duty 
from ten at night until four o 'clock in the morn- 

108 



THE CANTEEN GIRL WHO LISTENED 

ing." Surely Anne Ross here has proved her- 
self worthy of the noble ancestry of which she 
is so proud. 

With Miss Ross, that day at the Paris Y. W., 
when I chanced to ask her to pass the salt and 
so found out about her, was her team-mate, Miss 
Cornelia Smith of St. Joseph, Mo., who has the 
distinction of being the youngest overseas girl 
in the U. S. canteen service, for she is just 
" sweet and twenty." How she put it over on 
the strict examining committee and gave the im- 
pression of being twenty-five, she smiles mysti- 
cally when you ask her. But she got across and 
has been in the Paris office of the " Y " canteen 
and assisting at entertainments and dances for 
the soldiers who came to Paris on leave. Miss 
Smith is an army child. She is a niece of Gen. 
A. Leonard Smith of Missouri. She told, na- 
ively, how she went from Paris to Brussels a 
short time ago in an airplane, one of the pas- 
senger planes that carried fourteen people. It 
took them two hours and a half. " Oh, yes, we 
had an accident," she remarked, " one of the 
engines gave out and we came down almost to 
the ground. But we reached Brussels all right. 

109 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



It was wonderful flying over the battlefields. 
The trenches looked like lace. At one city we 
were brought down low enough to see the people 
on the streets." 

Having come over together I remarked how 
pleasant that they could return on the same 
boat, as they both leave next Friday for St. 
Malo to await their sailing. 

" Oh, yes," she answered, breezily, " you see 
we came over together and they don't break 
the set." 



110 



CHAPTER IX 

WITH THE WATCH ON THE RHINE 

Aug. 3. 

IT is all quiet along the Rhine tonight! 
I have just come from Die "Wacht am 
Rhine par les Allies. 

That is the way our boys there say it, in three 
languages, today. The old martial song that 
has echoed down the centuries from its castled 
hills has new words and a new tune. At 
Coblenz it is " The Star Spangled Banner," in 
Cologne it is " God Save the King," and at 
Mayence it is the " Marsellaise." 

Right there on the storied Rhine, where every 
foot of shore line has its legendary tale to tell, 
there is being enacted in this, our day, a bit of 
world drama that has all its thrilling legends 
" beat off the boards." The Lorelei fairy who 
sat on the rock as you round the turn to Bingen, 
to lure the sailors and fishermen to destruction 
in the rapids at the foot of the precipice, has 
ceased " singing her siren song as she combs 

111 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



her golden hair ' ' and has given her place to the 
Goddess of Liberty who is holding aloft the 
torch of the New Day. Where back in the twelfth 
century the robber barons and their hordes 
swooped down from these high-perched castles 
in their raids to show that Might was Right, 
even as did their modern kaiser exponent, there 
is today a firm-treading, quiet-eyed, horde of 
olive drab and khaki and horizon-blue teaching 
the gospel of the New Democracy. They are 
not doing any of this conquering hero stunt, 
either. Not a bit of it. Quietly, justly, firmly, 
they are dealing with the situation and they are 
having little trouble. They don't stand any 
nonsense, this man's army of ours. And in 
consequence it is so quiet they have time to 
wonder what the folks are doing and thinking 
back home. 

What comes to mind sharpest in traversing 
this beautiful Rhine valley, with its secure, com- 
fortable villages and its cities untouched by 
the horrors of war, is its contrast with the 
mangled Valley of the Marne. Involuntarily 
memory unrolls the reel of the shattered dwell- 
ings, the shells of buildings, the sepulchred 

112 




e ^dW 



M • 



nunc w ™™#«* 

r "AS Prfss/CB £ ^ 



Limit American Zone — 30 Kilometers from Coblenz — photo of sign post. 





Group of German Children in American Zone on the Rhine. 



WITH THE WATCH ON THE RHINE 

cities of France. Here no one returned to find a 
scrap of crumbling wall all that is left of home 
and its treasures. 

But there is one gratifying phase — the 
knowledge that this impregnable stronghold 
was forced to yield without a single shot. For 
two thousand years this Rhineland has been 
fought for, and Germany, as its most prized 
possession, had fortified it so thoroughly you 
do not have to be an expert in military tactics to 
see that it would have meant great human cost 
to have stormed Ehrenbreitstein's gun-bristling 
heights. 

If you want to know one of the biggest thrills 
of life you must see Old Glory floating from the 
fortress of Ehrenbreitstein, that blinks across 
the Rhine from its rocky eminence, on the 
Yankee-soldiered city of Coblenz. Your flag 
and my flag ! You must have a storage battery 
in the place of your heart if it does not jump 
with pride at the sight. There it is, flung to the 
breeze, on what the Germans believed was their 
Gibraltar. There it flies to say that Chateau 
Thierry and St. Mihiel and the Argonne were 
not in vain. 

113 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



Reaching Coblenz (and you must now pro- 
nounce it Koh-blahnss, dragging out the last 
syllable) Monday night, we were met at the 
train by Lieut. H. M. Jobes, head press officer 
of the American Forces in Germany, who had 
been wired of our coming by Colonel Moreno, 
head of the Intelligence department of the A. 
E. F. in Paris. Lieut. Jobes is from Iowa. He 
has been over since September, 1917, first with 
the French and British as an observation offi- 
cer, then as instructor in the artillery school at 
Langres, then with the fourth corps, F. A. in 
the Toule and Metz sectors. He was in the 
battles of Cantigny, Mondidier and Noyon and 
spent Christmas, 1917, in the trenches. His 
knowledge of the war has made him an invalu- 
able press officer. 

Mile Axler, the French girl, had accom- 
panied me from Paris and we were billeted in 
the Hotel Riesen Furstenhof, which is still 
partly given over to the American Forces. The 
hotel faces the Rhine promenade and the won- 
derful bridge of boats or pontoon bridge across 
the river. We were taken Tuesday morning to 
Neuwied, the headquarters of the First Divi- 

114 



WITH THE WATCH ON THE RHINE 

sion, out to the bridgeheads, and motored over 
the entire American zone on the right bank of 
the Rhine to its limit. Through the village of 
Ehrenbreitstein, past our troops drilling in 
open fields, through Montebaur with its camp of 
American soldiers, past the wide fields that the 
week of June 12 bristled with cannon all ready 
to move on Berlin if the peace had not been 
signed, where the knolls still bear the marks of 
having supported machine guns. 

And then we came to an outpost with a sin- 
gle bough across the road. A corporal and a 
couple of sentries were stationed there. On the 
farther side of the bough was a sign, in both 
English and German, reading that this was the 
limit of the American Zone of Occupation. To 
the left of the road the Stars and Stripes 
floated from a flagpole and on the wooded ter- 
race beyond were the tents of the outpost. Over 
in the distance nestled a little, narrow streeted 
German village and smiling fields were all 
about. It was a scene of quiet content on that 
midsummer morning, even if I was warned 
1 ' don 't step over that bough — they would 
have the right to shoot you if you did." 

115 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



On the way back over another route we 
passed through the exquisite Valley of the 
Sayn. The Sayn river is so narrow you would 
call it a creek; you could jump it without an 
effort. This Valley of the Sayn is like a fairy 
bower, especially at one spot where over high 
wooded cliffs we had a glimpse of the spires of 
the hunting lodge of Bertha Krupp, for whom 
the Big Bertha was named. The roads through 
Germany are like ballroom floors, making 
motoring a joy. I could not but recall the roads 
of France, punctured with shellholes. In the 
villages we saw an incredible number of chil- 
dren. " Germany has another army growing 
up " was the observation of an officer in the 
car. Occasionally these little boys would salute 
the American car but more often they just 
looked at it in wonder. Once we passed an 
American car with tire trouble at the side of 
a street and the soldiers were surrounded by 
little German boys. 

On Tuesday afternoon we were motored up 
to the Fortress Ehrenbreitstein. Crossing the 
Rhine from Coblenz to the right bank and 
through the village that bears the name of 

116 



WITH THE WATCH ON THE RHINE 

the fortress we were soon going up the steep 
road. It is some twist, that road. The stone 
wall on the river side is pierced every few feet 
with embrasures for guns. There were mo- 
ments when one felt the tugging auto, with its 
skillful American doughboy at the wheel, never 
would make it. An army trying to scale these 
heights would never have a chance. We had 
one breathless moment when, just at a sharp 
turn under a trestle, we came in sight of a motor 
lorry full of soldiers coming down and only ten 
feet away. The hill back of our car was a 
winding drop of a hundred feet and back of the 
lorry a steep climb of more. For a moment 
it was a question of who could give the road. 
But the press car driver found a knoll to the 
left and dug his front wheels into it while the 
motor lorry wriggled past. When we backed 
out it was a pleasant thought — what might 
happen if the brakes didn't hold. But they did. 
Into the open parade ground of the fortress 
we drove and saw an upstanding troop of our 
American soldiers at inspection. Descending 
from the car my first impulse was to climb up 
on the tower under the American flag. There as 

117 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



we stood in the little railed enclosure that holds 
the flag staff, the bugler came to sound the 
recall. A trim-looking, boyish, soldier was 
Private G. Eestifo, Battery G, 5th F. A. with 
his bugle glinting in the sunlight as he stood 
under the flag at attention for my kodak. 

From the turrets of the fortress the view of 
the fertile valley of the Ehine and of Coblenz 
is a memorable one. There is only one dis- 
cordant note. That is the ungainly statue of 
one, Wilhelm, formerly kaiser of these parts, 
that occupies the triangle just before the city 
of Coblenz where the Rhine and Moselle rivers 
meet. It is the most conspicuous point in the 
landscape and the monument is so large that it 
obtrudes itself into the picture from every 
angle. It has what our American Ad clubs 
would concede is the best position, or in other 
words, preferred space. If it were artistic it 
might be forgiven for its historic interest, but 
is not. Before leaving we visited the kitchen 
and mess hall of the fortress where everything 
was wonderfully orderly, spick and span. 

The Fortress of Ehrenbreitstein is 385 feet 
above the Rhine on a precipitous rock and is 

118 



WITH THE WATCH ON THE RHINE 

connected with the neighboring heights only on 
the north side. The present fortress dating 
from 1826 succeeded a very ancient stronghold 
of the Electors of Treves, which played an im- 
portant part in the Thirty Years' War and was 
taken by the French in 1799. 

On the hill south of Ehrenbreitstein is Fort 
Asterstein, to which we climbed. There I stood 
on an honest-to-goodness drawbridge that 
spans the deep moat up to the big iron doors. 
How many young German Lochinvars had 
dashed across that drawbridge in days gone by 
I wondered. Then a soldier in the party re- 
marked ' ' you are right in line for a machine 
gun in that first embrasure to hit you." But 
who's afraid? I was with the American Army. 
I could even walk with nose high right past 
the big * ' Verboten to Enter ' ' sign before the 
outer gate, though I read it is by " Kgl. 
Commander ' ' — for all this is American zone 
now. 

Only the First and Third divisions are in the 
area as I write. The Third division is to leave 
this week and the First, with the exception of 
about 6,000 men, had that day received wqrd 

119 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



that they would leave Aug. 15. About 25,000 
American troops are to be left as the American 
Forces in Germany, I am told, and Major Gen. 
Henry T. Allen is in charge. 

I had a short talk with Major Geo. Cockriel, 
provost marshal of the A. F. in G. and he told 
me something of conditions in Coblenz. Out- 
wardly there were no signs of suffering among 
the people as the American army, through Mr. 
Hoover, had been able to fill their immediate 
needs and to sell them some supplies. So food 
conditions have been much better for the people 
since our Army of Occupation is stationed 
there. Those who are suffering are not the ones 
who are bitter against the Army of Occupation. 
They are the old, the crippled and the little 
children. The provost marshal told me of the 
practice of people of means of buying up the 
food cards issued to the poor and thus purchas- 
ing army supplies for their own use. ' ' We 
issue food cards that for a mark and a half 
the poor get nourishing food with fats or milk 
for the children, but instead they often sell the 
cards and buy potatoes or some other food that 
has not the nutritive value. Whenever I have 

120 



WITH THE WATCH ON THE RHINE 

been able to get hold of these profiteers I have, 
made an example of them — given them the full 
extent of the law." Otherwise they have had 
but little trouble at Coblenz — occasionally a 
disturbance — nothing but what might happen 
in any city of this size, he assured me. He did 
not mention that he had been the target for a 
bullet on the street only a short time before, but 
intimated that our army has a firm hand on the 
situation. Major Fernbach of the circulation 
and civil affairs department told me the prob- 
lems of the German people of the occupied zone 
would be considered by the Interallied Rhine- 
land Commission. We saw no signs of poverty 
in the villages through which we passed. There 
were the usual evidences of German thrift and 
the children looked well fed. The fields are 
growing and from their appearance the crops 
will be large. "We were unable to buy chocolate 
in Coblenz. 

On Wednesday we motored to Cologne which 
is the English zone, with Gen. Sir William 
Robertson in charge. At a gasoline station on 
the way I talked to Private Watson of Cedar 
Rapids. There was a noticeable difference 
when we passed from the American to the Eng- 

121 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



lisli zone and we began to see squads of Eng- 
lish Tommies on the streets of the villages. 
Cologne is about sixty miles from Coblenz and 
the way led through the University city of 
Bonn. It was in Bonn that Beethoven was 
born. 

On arriving in Cologne we stopped before the 
cathedral which is the finest Gothic edifice in 
Germany. It was begun in the 13th century 
and only finished in 1880. A guide took us 
through, together with a group of English sol- 
diers and English women welfare workers. He 
pointed out where the stained glass windows 
had been removed and plain glass substituted 
saying: " The wonderful windows were taken 
out during the war as a bomb could destroy in 
a few moments a work of art that took years 
to make. ' ' I wanted to ask, ' ' What about 
Rheims? " Cologne dates back to 38 B. C. and 
was founded by the Romans. 

We called on the head of the English press 
who was most cordial, but said : ' l Why, there 
is absolutely nothing doing here, dontcher 
know. It is so very quiet. All the correspond- 
ents have left in disgust. Oh, no, we've had no 

122 



WITH THE WATCH ON THE RHINE 

trouble to speak of. Well, I think the men 
with families will be glad to go home, but the 
others seem not to mind staying." The Eng- 
lish Tommies have what they call a Rhine 
Army Dramatic Club. " I don't know much 
about it, you know," admitted the head of their 
press, frankly. " They have given some Shaw 
plays — I suppose it is like those things usually 
are." The streets of Cologne fairly swarmed 
with English soldiers and officers. At the Eng- 
lish officers' club we found women are not ad- 
mitted after tea-time, 5 o'clock, and it was top 
much trouble to hunt up the English press of- 
ficer, who had directed us there, for special per- 
mission, so we started back to Coblenz at six 
o'clock convinced that the English forces were 
just having a nice quiet time at Cologne. 

Thursday morning we motored to Mayence 
(you must pronounce it "My-ahnss" now) 
which is the headquarters of the French Army 
in Germany and where 75,000 to 150,000 soldiers 
of France will guard the Rhine bridgehead, 
until the peace terms are met. It was after ten 
o'clock that morning, following an interesting 
visit to the general headquarters, where I met 

123 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



officials of the American army and saw the 
long waiting lines at the passport offices, that 
we left Coblenz. In the party besides Lieut. 
Jobes and the young Frenchwoman who accom- 
panied me, were Capt. Bertrand, French intel- 
ligence officer stationed at Coblenz and his 
mother, Mme Vigne of Paris, who was on her 
way to the south of France. It was through 
Capt. Bertrand that we had obtained passports 
to enter the French zone of occupation for we 
had to have the official permit to go there as 
well as the English passport to Cologne. Capt. 
Bertrand wore several crosses of war and the 
ribbon of the Legion of Honor. He had lost 
one eye and had a deep scar in his face from 
wounds. This intrepid little Frenchman knew 
the name and history of every castle on the 
Rhine and was a veritable guide book of in- 
formation. 

As we motored along he pointed out on oppo- 
site promontories the two medieval castles, the 
Cat and the Mouse. The Mouse was the castle 
of the Archbishop von Falkenstein and was 
socalled derisively by the Counts of Katzeneln- 
bogen in contradistinction to their " Cat." 

124 



WITH THE WATCH ON THE RHINE 

Past the fortress of Rheinfels and then through 
Bacharach. The French captain related Bacha- 
rach 's claim to fame. Its wine is so noted that, 
so the story goes, Archbishop Williges of May- 
ence sold the city of Nuremburg for a single 
cask of it. It is this same Archbishop of May- 
ence who, on being ridiculed on account of his 
humble origin as the son of a blacksmith, chose 
the wheel for his coat of arms and later it was 
taken as the design for the seal of the city of 
Mayence. We passed the Mouse Tower, the 
Lorelei Rock and then through Bingen into the 
fertile Rhinegau. 

Mayence was alive with French poilus and 
we had luncheon at the French Cercle des Offi- 
ciers. Red Fez capped Colonial troops added 
to the colorful picture in the courtyard. 

The American Army car took us to Worms, 
a large and thriving city where we bought 
plums in the market place. Some of the streets 
were only wide enough for the car to get 
through. At Worms we took the train for 
Strasbourg to see the redeemed Alsace. 

And how did I find our boys in Germany is 
the question you want to ask! They are splen- 

125 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



did. I have seen the contented and the discon- 
tented ones — the grave and the merry ones. 
The chap who hasn't heard from home for 
three months naturally wants to get back. I've 
had officers tell me they regret to leave and 
others, like the man yesterday who said he was 
the oldest inhabitant on the Rhine, having been 
there since the armistice, the very thought of go- 
ing home made his eyes sparkle. But I gath- 
ered that the most of them, though living in a 
storied land, are building new castles on the 
Rhine — air castles of home — so keep the home 
fires burning for them. 



126 



CHAPTER X 

WITH THE FIGHTING FIRST 



11 



THEY call it " The Fighting First. 
It was the first American division to 
get overseas, the first to get into the fight and 
it is going to be the last division to get home. 

The Commander in Chief has noted in this 
division " a special pride of service and a high 
morale, never broken by hardship or battle. ' ' 

But fighting from the first to the last and 
sticking it out to the finish is not all the First 
did overseas. It put on a circus with three 
hundred performers and a real, live, elephant 
from Hagenbaeck's, twenty big acts and a wild 
west show, closing its series of three request 
performances tonight in Cologne before the 
British Army of Occupation ; it has written and 
produced the cleverest musical comedy of the 
year, "A. "W. 0. L.," which any soldier will 
tell you means ' ' Absent Without Leave ' ' and 
it publishes a scintillating newspaper at Monte- 

127 



WITHIN THE YEAH AFTER 



baur called " The Bridgehead Sentinel." Inci- 
dentally one hundred and eleven members of 
this division were cited by Maj. Gen. E. F. 
McGlachlin this very past week for some act 
of bravery or service performed during the 
war! 

Do you wonder that it is a distinction to be- 
long to The Fighting First? 

I sat in the office of its chief of staff, Col. 
Guy S. Fuqua, at Neuwied, a few miles out of 
Coblenz the other morning at the psychological 
moment when The First received its orders 
home. ' ' The biggest piece of news I have 
today," said the Colonel to me, "is that the 
First leaves for home on Aug. 15." And the 
Bridgehead Sentinel issued an " extra " to that 
effect a few hours later. All of the American 
regiments did nobly, but the record of the First 
overseas is such a splendid one that every 
American must thrill with pride at the men- 
tion of it. 

It was Major Chas. S. Coulter, head of the 
intelligence section, whom I coaxed to tell me 
a little about the First division. It is much 
easier to get Major Coulter to talk about the 

128 



WITH THE FIGHTING FIRST 

First division than about how he won the seven 
stars on his service ribbon, five gold stars which 
stand for battles, major engagements, and two 
silver stars for citations. He was the first 
American intelligence officer in the French 
lines and was trained by the French. He has 
the distinction of having been on duty in front 
of division headquarters, on duty at the battle 
front, longer than any other American officer. 

No more magnificent tribute could be paid to 
the American soldier than that of Major Coul- 
ter at luncheon that noon when we were his 
guests at the First division mess at the head- 
quarters. 

" There is nothing better on earth than the 
American soldier," he said. " I've seen him 
go into battle. He is wonderful. My men never 
stopped for anything. My scouts never knew 
fear. I have had a messenger come to me and 
ask for a certain officer. ' You will find him 
right down that road, ' I 'd tell him. ' But I 
can't find him,' the messenger would say for 
the hail of bullets was thick on that road. In- 
stantly one of my men would volunteer. ■ I'll 
find him, sir.' And he always did. No, my 

129 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



scouts didn't hang around listening posts. I 
know that is what you folks at home think a 
scout does. A listening post isn't necessarily 
a dangerous place. My scouts got into the front 
German trenches. The Germans learned very 
soon not to keep many men in their front 
trenches for they were too exposed." 

He told quite simply of a raid one night 
when he had his men stationed at the two 
strong points with automatic rifles. The attack 
had been carried out just as he had foretold it. 
At one of these strong points was Sergt. W. B. 
Norton. The Boche came down the trench 
calling ''American dogs, come out." The 
Sergeant's 45 sent three bullets and when they 
found that Boche all three were in his heart 
within a circle of a half -inch diameter. Sergt. 
Norton got the first D. S. C. out of it. Major 
Coulter related exploits of the two Lieutenants 
Green, known as Dark Green and Light Green 
to distinguish them. He liked to talk of Ser- 
geant Pat Walsh, too, who got a D. S. C. out 
of that fight. ' ' He is an old regular army man, 
Sergeant Walsh is. He has the Croix de 
Guerre," he said, "wears about fourteen rib- 

130 



WITH THE FIGHTING FIRST 

bons — he is the most decorated man in the 
A. E. F. now. He's a fine fellow, Walsh. He 
was our color sergeant — all man and pure 
gold. It is the American doughboy who de- 
serves the great credit for the victory," the 
major emphasized. " He went in unquestion- 
ingly at all times. I have heard men joke going 
into an attack when they knew most of them 
would be carried off. Their courage is sub- 
lime." 

I listened to many interesting stories about 
the First, some unpublished stories, too. The 
First division was organized by a special tele- 
gram from the war department on May 31, 
1917, which designated the 16th, the 18th, the 
26th and the 28th infantry as the First division 
and the first expedition. The First included five 
regiments of Marines and a base hospital corps, 
the Johns Hopkins unit assembled in Balti- 
more. For three weeks the government had 
been trying to assemble a base hospital unit 
but could not get it together. In just twenty- 
four hours the Johns Hopkins unit was as- 
sembled and on its way. The four infantry 
regiments had been on the Mexican border and 

131 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



they were ordered east, shipped at Hoboken 
and landed at St. Nazaire. 

En route east many men had tossed bits of 
army bread, on which they had written their 
addresses, out of the windows. There was Pvt. 
Simpson now. The censor officer only had to 
read one of his letters to sixteen different girls 
and he could stamp ' ' censored ' ' on all the rest. 
They were identical. There are other incidents 
concerning the secrecy of that expedition that 
they tell now. One battalion of the 18th in- 
fantry was detained at a New York station, 
and when they inarched to the docks, someone 
gave the order for the musicians to uncase their 
instruments. They started down the street to 
the tune of " The Gang's All Here." The tune 
was changed to ' ' Happy Heinie ' ' and they got 
in a few bars of " Die Wacht am Rhine " as 
they went through lines of 10,000 cheering peo- 
ple. But the story was not used by the New 
York papers. The First sailed officially June 
14, but it was to sail June 9 or 10. As the 
transports lay in the harbor excursion boats 
ran around them and there seemed but little 
secrecy about the farewells. 

132 



WITH THE FIGHTING FIRST 

Not a single vessel was lost. Only one had 
had a close call on the voyage. The old Prince 
Eitel Frederick, re-named the " DeKalb " es- 
caped five torpedoes. It had the closest call of 
any ship of the expedition. 

The division debarked June 26 at St. Nazaire 
Camp No. 1, where they left July 1 and started 
the first training area at Gondrecourt in the 
Province of the Meuse. Their first sector was 
the Sommervilliers sector and they went in 
with the 66th and the 77th trench infantry. 
They went in by battalions first, for ten days' 
training. The trenches there were from 800 to 
1,000 meters apart. This was a quiet sector, 
though they had one raid on the 16th infantry, 
in which company F had three men killed and 
eleven captured. This was the first raid on 
Americans in which casualties were suffered. 

The division during the winter had gone into 
training in open warfare in case the Boches 
should fight out of the trenches. And this train- 
ing was harder than any attack. They lived in 
old shelters where the snow and rain would 
come in at night. In January the French called 
upon them to relieve them at the Ansonville 

133 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



sector. It was taken over by the First infantry 
brigade under Gen. Geo. B. Duncan, the 16th 
infantry under Col. John L. Hynes, later 
made general, and the 18th infantry under Col. 
Frank Parker, later commander of the First 
division and now commander of the First in- 
fantry brigade. This was a quiet sector. 
The First put over several raids in March, 
1918, with four officers and seventy men. The 
Germans put a raid over of four officers and 
240 men on the morning of March 1. Only 
eight Germans got past the front lines, five 
of whom were killed and the rest captured. 
But forty yards separated the trenches of the 
Germans and the Americans. From there the 
First went to the Montdidier front. They won 
glory in the battle of Cantigny, at Soissons, in 
the second battle of the Marne, at St. Mihiel, 
in the Argonne and Meuse and were in the 
finish at Sedan. 

Then they came on to the Coblenz bridgehead 
as a part of the Army of Occupation, where 
they are now holding the bridgehead proper 
and a radius of thirty kilometers from the 
Rhine. 

134 



WITH THE FIGHTING FIRST 



"In coming across Luxembourg into Ger- 
many the First division had a wonderful time," 
Maj. Coulter recalled. It was Nov. 21 when it 
started its overland march to Germany. He, 
with Capt. L. E. E. Marechaux, on horseback, 
rode at the head of the column. " Through 
Luxembourg they didn't notice me," Maj. Coul- 
ter laughed, " but they ran out and kissed 
Marechaux, brought him flowers, held up their 
children to be kissed, and invited him to have 
coffee. I was an interested spectator. They 
paid no more attention to me than if I had not 
been there. That held until we got to the town 
of Esch where there was a great reception. 
Large crowds had gathered and they called on 
Gen. Frank Parker, commander of the division, 
who talked to them in French. The flowers 
completely filled an auto. The general was 
obliged to make a second speech at an overflow 
meeting. A band played the Luxembourg air 
seventeen times and when it struck up the 
"Stars and Stripes Forever" they wondered 
why we didn't salute. 

" The next day the 18th infantry marched 
through the city of Luxembourg. Our arms 

135 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



were filled with flowers. Why, when the horse 
of one of our officers bucked none of us could 
help him, we had our arms so full of flowers. 
We rested eight days in and around Greven- 
macher where they gave dances and entertained 
us wonderfully. 

" It was December 1 when we started the 
march to Coblenz, and reached here December 
12. The whole division was billeted at Coblenz. 
The 18th infantry at the head of the first brig- 
ade and the 28th infantry heading the second 
brigade, crossed the Rhine on the morning of 
December 13. The 18th infantry were the first 
American troops to cross the Rhine. The time 
was set for seven o'clock but all our watches 
were three minutes fast." The major's eyes 
seemed to twinkle as he remarked that it was 
queer their watches should all be three minutes 
fast. The 18th was his regiment. They had a 
two days' march to their station on the bridge- 
head. The women of Barnbach and Ransbach 
he said came out with coffee and served our 
troops as they went through. They couldn't 
understand the Germans across the Rhine do- 
ing it. The Second and Third divisions have 

136 



WITH THE FIGHTING FIRST 

been with the First division in the area holding 
the banks of the Rhine at Coblenz. 

Maj. Coulter apologized for having to leave 
us but he had to get out the * ' extra ' ' announc- 
ing the date of the departure of the division. 
He is editor in chief of the Bridgehead Sentinel 
and boasts that he is the only editor whose com- 
posing room is thirty kilometers from his office. 
He was formerly connected with the Provi- 
dence, R. I., Journal. He has led men into some 
of the hottest engagements the division has 
seen and from lieutenants I learned he was 
one of its best-loved officers. 

Now it must mean something to keep a bunch 
of fellows as full of pep as that First from 
getting lonely when they have no battles to 
look forward to, so I asked Capt. R. W. Corri- 
gan, the entertainment officer of the division, 
how he did it. I knew they drilled in the 
mornings and had athletics, ball games and 
sports in the afternoons, as is the program for 
the entire army on the Rhine, but what about 
the evenings? He told me they had twenty- 
three motion picture theaters in the 52 towns. 
They also have several fine vaudeville teams. 

137 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



The Cantigny Players, named after the first 
important village captured by the division on 
May 28, 1918, the first big American victory, 
put on a successful show July 4 and are re- 
hearsing again for vaudeville. It has a cast of 
twenty. But the real First division show is 
"A. W. 0. L.," which means " Gone but not 
Forgotten." It was written by Musician 
Robert Faulkner of the First engineers and is 
a musical production. Of course the division 
circus is the "Biggest in Europe," their dis- 
play advertisement in the Cologne Post, the or- 
gan of the British army, assured me, and with 
twenty big acts and forty clowns and a live 
menagerie, a concert and a side show it ought 
to be. Col. Hervey, commander of the First 
ammunition train, is director of the circus, and 
its three-day performances this week must have 
made the English Tommies open their eyes. 
Unfortunately the circus was not on when I 
was in Cologne, but I accepted an invitation to 
attend the division play ' ' A. W. 0. L. " and we 
went to Andernach Wednesday night to see it. 
Andernach is about an hour's motor trip along 
the Rhine from Coblenz, and the big tent, for- 

138 



WITH THE FIGHTING FIRST 

merly a hangar, was filled with American soldier 
boys when the curtain went up. 

"A. W. 0. L." is a remarkably clever show. 
It has more good laughs than anything pro- 
duced in a year. Its fun is clean and crisp and 
new and its music is tuneful. Its chorus is a 
wonder. Of course it is all First division men, 
but you wouldn't guess it were it not for the 
husky, contralto voices. The cute little one 
with the blond bobbed hair on the end at the 
left kept the front rows in an uproar with her 
flirtatious wiles. They sympathized audibly 
with the Red Cross nurse, with a heavy basso 
sob in her voice, when she caught her lieutenant 
husband comforting a weeping French girl. 
The plot is woven about a doughboy who is 
absent without leave and is joined in the ad- 
venture by an English Tommy. The dough- 
boy's lieutenant takes the same train to elope 
with the Red Cross nurse. 

Opening in Coblenz, the scene rapidly 
changes to a French village. It has plenty of 
good U. S. slang in it which gets across without 
an effort and a number of catchy songs, one 
about home and mother having a special ap- 

139 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



peal. The doughboy manages to get himself 
hopelessly entangled in a couple of heart af- 
fairs and then a French poilu and the English 
Tommy come to his rescue, which is as it should 
be, and does more than anything else to make 
you understand the good feeling that is grow- 
ing up between them there on the Rhine. The 
arrogant young lieutenant didn't get much 
sympathy from the spectators around me — 
there was a served-him-right tone to their 
grunts of approval when he ' ' got his. ' ' Of 
course it ends happily with a burst of melody. 
Briefly speaking, "A. W. 0. L." is one of those 
shows you cannot afford to miss. It is made up 
of good comedy, good music and good soldiers. 
So this is what I learned about the First 
division. They have not been Fighting the 
Battle of Paris, which is the way they speak 
over here of the chap who got himself to the 
Capital during the war when there was work 
at the front. They have been where bullets 
were thickest. They are led by a group of 
splendid officers. That can be said of all our 
divisions that were over here, but probably 
none has had so many brilliant, talented, re- 

140 



WITH THE FIGHTING FIRST 

sourceful men, who inspired those with them 
with the highest courage and zeal for their divi- 
sion. Furthermore they are all rooters for the 
First. And this First can play just as hard as 
it can fight. 

For they are all Good Soldiers. 



141 



CHAPTER XI 

IN ALSACE-LORRAINE 

Aug. 3. 
"T TOW did you get to go to Coblenz? " is 
A A the question I answer most since my 
return. Getting to Coblenz these days is not as 
easy as it sounds. I had appealed to scores of 
people, powerful and near-powerful, only to 
meet a polite "Well, I don't know how you 
could." It was Conger Reynolds, managing ed- 
itor of the Paris Edition of the Chicago Trib- 
une, whom I approached when ready to give up, 
who electrified me by asking, "When do you 
want to go? ' : His letter of introduction to 
Colonel Moreno, head of the G 2 of the A. E. F. 
in Paris, brought out the same direct question, 
and with gratifying American speed, arrange- 
ments were made for passports. The head of 
the press section at Coblenz was wired to meet 
us. Through the courtesy of my government I 
was taken over the American area of occupa- 
tion and obtained passports that permitted me 

142 



IN ALSACE-LORRAINE 



to go into the Rhine zone of the French and 
British armies, at this time a rare privilege. 
Mr. Reynolds is from Des Moines and this 
Middle West spirit of ' ' help one another ' ' is 
one of the joys I have encountered. I met it 
again on the platform of the Paris depot the 
morning I left when I was once more devoutly 
grateful. 

Obtaining official passports and making train 
reservations for Coblenz a week ahead isn't all 
you have to do, besides packing your grip and 
arising at 5 o'clock in the morning to catch a 
7 :50 train. You also have to purchase your 
ticket and get into the train, and an hour does 
not give you any too much time for that. I 
don't know why buying a ticket in a French 
railway station should be such a complicated 
proceeding, but it is. After producing your 
passport you struggle through wads of red 
tape. You may get into a long queue line that 
straggles out into the center of the huge, barn- 
like waiting room, and when your turn finally 
arrives at the ticket window, be sent to another, 
as we were. Finding your train is the next 
problem. At the A. E. F. headquarters I had 

143 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



been told I was to leave Paris at 7:50 a.m. 
and arrive in Coblenz at 8 o'clock that night. 
No change. Very simple. At the depot no 
one had ever heard of such a train ! We located 
a train to Metz, but where it went after that 
no one knew. Whether it met any train that 
might be wandering to Coblenz was equally 
problematical. I had sent the young French- 
woman back to ask another official and I stood 
on the platform guarding the baggage and hav- 
ing an argument with a uniformed trainman, 
who was waving his hands in excited French 
from a coupe window. It was a monologue 
rather than an argument. He was telling me 
for the sixth time that that train went to Metz. 
This has been considerable of a war over here 
and the trains on this road have been back in 
service for such a short time no one claims to 
be familiar with their vagaries. I had just as- 
sembled in my best French the question, " Is 
there no through train to Coblenz that arrives 
there about 8 o'clock," when a nice mid-western 
voice at my elbow asked — ' ' Could I help you ? ' ' 
There stood two American officers. They as- 
certained there was no other train at that hour. 

144 



IN ALSACE-LORRAINE 



" We are going there ourselves — you have to 
wait two hours at Metz, and you will be lucky 
if you get to Coblenz by 11 o'clock," the senior 
officer said. 

''Where are you from!" — the usual ques- 
tion. 

" From Michigan, Battle Creek — and you? " 

' ' Davenport, Iowa. ' ' 

"Davenport? You don't happen to know 
Al O'Hern, do you? What — he's manager of 
one of the papers you represent! Used to be 
sporting editor when I knew him. I have played 
ball out there. Say, what coach are you in? " 

He was Captain Fountain and with him was 
Lieutenant Darrell of North Carolina. They 
found places in the same compartment and that 
is how we happened to have a special guard of 
the American Army all the way. 

Into this coupe there came a tall, distinguished 
French general with keen, smiling eyes and a 
high-bred face. We knew he was a general 
from the stars on his sleeve, but we did not 
learn his name. The French general gradually 
entered into the conversation. He said there 
would be another war between France and Ger- 
many before twenty years — ' ' Avant vingt ans. ' ' 

145 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



In his opinion the Germans were not beaten. In 
answer to the question would it have been better 
had the peace been signed in Berlin instead of 
Versailles, he replied that the Germans might 
then have recognized their defeat. He believed 
America should keep a large standing army 
over here. " The Americans do not realize 
what the Germans are," he said. " But the 
Germans have no army," someone remarked. 
" They have many children growing up," was 
his reply. ' ' It w T ould take a year to get Amer- 
ican soldiers over again, and in the meantime 
the French would bear the brunt of the first at- 
tacks." I have heard this prediction many times 
recently, only it was startling from such a high 
source. They only differ in the time. Many 
French people seem to feel that Germany is not 
overpowered, and that France should have had 
more at the Treaty table from Germany for all 
she suffered through the war. 

At Metz 

Two hours in Metz, which is Lorraine, you 
know, gave us a glimpse of the city where the 
French were welcomed so enthusiastically on 

146 



IN ALSACE-LORRAINE 



their entry last November, after the signing of 
the Armistice. Marshal Foch and Marshal Pe- 
tain headed the troops into Metz, and it was a 
glorious day for the city. They went in with 
bands playing and colors flying. The immense 
statue of Frederick in was dragged from its 
oblong pedestal at the head of the principal 
street, and for a long time the figure was left 
lying prone on the pavement beside the empty 
base. We went to the big Cathedral to see the 
statue with its chained hands. On one of the 
marble figures of the prophets set into niches 
at the outer portal, the former kaiser's face had 
been placed. The French did not remove the 
statue — they simply handcuffed it. The statue 
of the kaiser in the Park was removed and that 
of a French poilu is in its place. On the Parade 
grounds were groups of the Alpine regiment 
stationed there — the wonderful Blue Devils. 
We saw a few business houses closed — evi- 
dently German sympathizers. Metz is today 
wholly French. Tea in a quaint, wall-enclosed 
cafe was very French in its atmosphere as well 
as in the cakes. 

On the way from Metz to Coblenz a young 
147 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



French soldier in the coupe told us he had been 
in Metz when the statue of Frederick in had 
been dragged from its pedestal. We passed 
through the town of Thionville which has two 
names, Diedenhofen being its German cog- 
nomen. At Sierck we reached the frontier of 
Alsace-Lorraine where the customs officer came 
through. Then we traversed the Saar basin, 
the valuable coal country of which you have 
read in the Peace Treaty. The French are to 
control this for the next fifteen years. 

In Strasbourg 

En route back from Germany we stopped at 
Strasbourg. Strasbourg is the principal city 
of Alsace, and the war freed it after fifty years 
of German rule, so the pilgrimage to Stras- 
bourg is one that few travelers to the war 
zone will want to forego. It is one of the bright 
spots along what will be known as the Sacred 
Way. En route to Strasbourg from Worms 
we passed through Ludwigshafen, and just 
by way of reminder, passed the huge plants of 
the greatest chemical works in Germany, which 
during the war, was used as a gas factory. 

148 



IN ALSACE-LORRAINE 



After some difficulty in finding a hotel, as 
Strasbourg was very crowded, we, after din- 
ner, went to an Alsatian Kermesse. The Ker- 
messe is an institution of its own, resembling, 
more than anything else, our county fair. It 
was held in a beautiful park called the Orang- 
erie. It has a fine orangerie and a kiosk 
once belonging to King Louis n of Bavaria. 
You remember every musical show for years 
used to have a Kermesse somewhere in its 
scenes, but the real thing here in Strasbourg 
is even more picturesque. There were the most 
wonderful swings and merry-go-rounds. On 
the brilliantly illuminated grounds one mechan- 
ical swing arrangement was fascinating. The 
couples were seated in boats which swung 
in mid-air from ropes. A French poilu at one 
end and an Alsatian girl, in a bright red skirt 
with a black velvet bodice and a huge black 
head bow, was always at the other end of the 
skiff. They would work up to dizzying heights 
to blaring music and under a blaze of lights. 
But the real fun of the Kermesse is the dance. 
On a large open-air platform they waited in line, 
in the center of the floor, hundreds of dancing 

149 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



couples, for the music to begin. It cost a franc 
to dance ten dances, and no one would think of 
waiting in the side lines until the music started, 
for no note was to be missed. The girls in 
the Alsatian costumes and the girls in the white 
fichu-collared Lorraine frock with the white 
frilled hat were the dominant note. Often two 
French soldiers danced together solemnly; 
sometimes two girls ; again middle-aged women, 
or men and women in the sunset of life, and 
then again little children. It was just a big 
family dance. And the music? An American 
fox-trot. Imagine all that quaint scene to the 
tune of an American fox-trot. A few did have 
the step and for others, just a dizzying circular 
whirl answered the same purpose, and everyone 
was happy. Girls and women in Alsatian cos- 
tumes presided at the refreshment and post- 
card stands about the grounds and everywhere 
the French poilu was the life of the picture. 

The next morning we had several interesting 
hours in Strasbourg, visiting the great Cathe- 
dral with its harmonious interior effects. The 
stores in Strasbourg display, for the most part, 
French signs, while a few still use both Ger- 

150 



IN ALSACE-LORRAINE 



man and French as the one that had " Kaffee 
— Salon." 

Approaching pedestrians to ask directions, 
we used French first, then German, and often 
could get no response, because many of the peo- 
ple know only their Alsatian dialect which dif- 
fers from either. At times even our money 
would not talk, for they refuse to take German 
marks here and gave me back in change Stras- 
bourg money, which was valueless outside of 
that city. When I tried to use Coblenz money 
in Cologne I had it refused. The various cities 
during the war issued small paper currency 
good only in their own city, and most confus- 
ing to the tourist, so it takes some frenzied 
finance to keep from having a collection of 
souvenir money on hand in traveling about. 
Bank of France currency was the only kind 
that was accepted everywhere. 

Leaving Strasbourg at ten in the morning, 
with its picturesquely-garbed women on every 
street — I got the dearest old fat lady, sitting 
on a bench in a tree-shaded square on the river 
bank with an enormous black-bow head-dress, 
to pose benignly for my kodak — we had the all- 

151 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



day trip to Paris. We passed through Lune- 
ville where old men were stood up and shot in 
the streets when the Germans went through, 
and into Nancy which had seen many air raids. 
It was at the station at Chalons sur Marne 
that I spied a car of coal marked " U. S. A.," 
and I gave a squeal of delight. " Oh, there's 
a car of coal from home." You don't under- 
stand how friendly you can feel towards just a 
little old U. S. coal car on a siding, when in the 
diner back of you the black-frocked and capped 
French waitress is pulling corks with machine- 
gnn rapidity, and home is just about 4,000 miles 
away. 



152 



CHAPTER XII 

hearing Egypt's cause 

Paris, Aug. 5. 

IT IS a far cry from the banks of the Rhine 
to the banks of the Nile. 
Returning to Paris last Friday night from 
Coblenz and the bridgeheads with the Allied 
Armies, I remembered having accepted the in- 
vitation of the president and the members of 
the Delegation Egyptienne for "Dejeuner" 
Saturday noon at the Hotel Claridge. Why 
the Egyptian delegation should ask me to be 
their guest was as much of a mystery to me 
as it is to you. So curiosity, that same quality 
supposed to have once been so disastrous to a 
cat, decided me to go. American correspond- 
ents are very popular at this time in Paris, 
especially with the nations who feel they have 
not had justice at the peace table, and they are 
anxious to reach the American people through 
the great American ear, its press. So much of 
Italy's cause and Fiume, of Bulgaria and 

153 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



Greece and Thrace has been printed that it had 
not occurred to me that Egypt might have a 
cause. But it has and a good one. And it is 
well for those of us who live on the farther 
side of the Atlantic to know something of the 
problems of our neighbors on the Nile, in the 
shadow of the pyramids. 

Now, I suppose you are wondering whether 
they were all in trailing, white-silk kimono 
robes, with turban headdresses and heelless 
white sandals. They were not. The formal re- 
ception line in the foyer of the Claridge, that 
beautiful hotel on the Champs Elysees, was a 
group of men in correct American business 
suits, and I was led to a reception room where 
the president of the delegation, Zegloul Pasha, 
looking like the up-to-date president of any 
American Commercial club, instead of an Egyp- 
tian Prince, was greeting the guests. 

The company included about ten women with 
120 men, the Egyptian delegation numbering 
thirty-five. Their guests were leading French 
statesmen, together with members of the foreign 
press. On my left at the big hollow square 
table with its center trail of roses, sat an Egyp- 

154 



HEARING EGYPT'S CAUSE 



tian Bey. But as our French did not match 
up well we did not get much farther than the 
weather. At his left was Mrs. Herbert Adams 
Gibbons, special writer for Century's. The 
place card of the man at my right read Mo- 
hammed Mahoud Pasha and he spoke English 
as well as you. He made the only English 
speech on the toast program and it was a con- 
vincing one. He told me Egypt had been badly 
used at the Peace Table. It seems Egypt linked 
her fortunes immediately with the Allied cause 
and gave her soldiers and her money. It was 
the understanding that she should have inde- 
pendence, her goal for centuries. But when 
the time came Egypt was not allowed to send a 
representative to the Peace Congress and she 
is compelled now to remain under the protec- 
torate of England. 

" It isn't right," said this enthusiastic patriot 
Pasha. " President Wilson promised so much 
and then did nothing for us. Egypt is entitled 
to her independence. France suffered so much, 
she should have had more, too." I asked 
" What would you suggest should be done about 
it now? " " Tear up that Treaty of Peace and 

155 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



make another in which the small nations will 
have justice," was his rejoinder. "And send 
our President over here again for four months, ' ' 
I exclaimed. " Send another President," was 
his laconic answer. 

A few culled remarks from his speech that 
sent that company into cheers, are enlightening : 

" 'As the Lordliveth,' Lloyd George had said, 
' we wanted not one yard of Germany. ' Not less 
then did we believe England wanted anything 
of the Allied state. We fought side by side with 
Great Britain and her Allies during five terrible 
years. We never sided with one nation over 
another. But we sided with Democracy against 
Autocracy, with principles based on Right 
against fiats based on Might. All we desired 
was the restoration of our national right of In- 
dependence. We saw a bright future in the in- 
tervention of America, in American principles 
as out-spoken by President Wilson. Our conclu- 
sion from his fourteen points was that there 
would be justice to all people and nationalities, 
and that they would have the right to live their 
lives in safety, whether strong or weak. But 
these principles have not been applied. 

156 



HEARING EGYPT'S CAUSE 



" Egypt was not allowed to send representa- 
tives to the Peace Congress. Egypt that has 
had autonomy since 1841, has been reduced to 
a position far less than that she held in the 
last century. In vain her delegation protested 
against condemning thirteen millions of people 
unheard. We know President Wilson is very 
busy just now. But Egypt wants Liberty and 
progressive reforms, she wants the popular 
form of Democratic government. 

" We are perfectly willing to give England 
all safeguards on her route to the East, pro- 
vided these interests in no way violate the sov- 
ereignty of the Egyptian people. But to hold 
down a country that has contributed so much to 
civilization can never be popular with the 
thinking people of France, England and 
America. We depend upon your support and 
sympathy. Egypt will never accept anything 
less than her Independence." 

Doesn't that sound like 1776 from the Hud- 
son, rather than 1919 from the Nile? 

The president of the delegation made a stir- 
ring address in which he touched on the high 
character of the Egyptian, his broad culture, 

157 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



his position socially and in politics. His clos- 
ing " Vive Egypte Nationale " brought every- 
one to their feet. The distinguished French 
statesman, Anatole France, made a ringing 
speech for Egypt's cause. 

But it was left to an American journalist to 
receive the high tide of ovations. Herbert 
Adams Gibbons, a dean of the correspondents 
in the Allied cause, connected with the New 
York Herald and Century's, made a remarkable 
speech in French. Convinced that Egypt is en- 
titled to her freedom he touched the heart 
strings of the delegation and thrilled the big 
assemblage with his appeal that concluded with 
the toast " Egypt independent and mistress of 
her own destinies." 

The flashlight and camera men did poor team 
work, so the picture of the scene failed to take. 
Thus I lost my one opportunity of being photo- 
graphed with a Pasha, for the president of the 
delegation, stepping between Mrs. Gibbons and 
myself, had announced he would be taken with 
"the American ladies." And the photogra- 
pher, being French, had brought but one plate. 

But Egypt is not the only small nation strug- 
158 



HEARING EGYPT'S CAUSE 



gling for her freedom. My morning coffee 
often gets cold while I pore over long French 
communications from the Bureau d 'Information 
Coreen. Ten typewritten pages the other day 
told me of the cause of Korea. It is said that 
" both Eussia and Japan have been eyeing each 
other across Korea, each waiting for an oppor- 
tunity to snatch her. ' ' I believe there is already 
much sympathy in the American press for un- 
fortunate Korea whose people are longing pas- 
sionately for liberty and peace and look to 
America to help them attain their ideal. 

After all it is a good sign,, this awakening 
of the national consciousness among the small 
nations of the globe, and of those a half a world 
away from us. Wasn't it Ward of the Uni- 
versity of Wisconsin who wrote : 

" Men look to the East for the dawning things, 

For the light of a rising sun, 
But they look to the West, the crimson West 

For the things that are done, are done. ' ' 

The Great War created new standards, 
among them the recognition of the rights of 
the small nations, even the least of these. And 

159 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



here in Paris they appeal for the sympathy and 
understanding of New World. They are sup- 
plicating to us from the Far East, from the 
cradle of our civilization. And it has been 
written ' ' In the West, the crimson West, the 
dreams of the East come true." What are we 
going to do about it? 



160 



CHAPTER XIII 

WHEN OUR JACK TAR CAME TO PAREE 

Paris, Aug. 6. 
"YT THERE is our wandering sailor boy to- 

VV night? " 

"Well, just about now," chuckles Father, 
laying down his evening paper and consulting 
the wall calendar, ' ' Hum, just about now, he 
is in Paris — lucky kid ! ' ' 

"You don't suppose," and Mother's wistful 
sigh has a frightened catch, as her knitting 
needles hesitate in their click, " You don't sup- 
pose — he could be in any danger? Paris is so 
big and I've heard it is so gay and there are so 
many temptations — and Billie's so young — 
and he's seen so little of the world " 

Forty thousand American mothers are look- 
ing anxiously Parisward these days, with the 
same nameless fear in their hearts. 

That is why I went out to learn something 
of the plans for caring for and looking after 
the forty thousand seamen from the U. S. trans- 

161 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



ports, who are each given five days' leave to 
come to Paris, before returning home to be mus- 
tered out. Many of these men enlisted and were 
stationed at the Great Lakes Training Station 
in Chicago before being placed in the transport 
service. 

The background is this: The men of the 
cruisers and battleships have been on leave 
heretofore, but the men on the transports and 
supply ships have not been off duty since the 
war began, serving constantly without inter- 
mission, bringing troops over and getting them 
back home. They have seen nothing of the beau- 
tiful land of France, for the ports where they 
docked are not typical of the country. These 
lads would leave the service with no apprecia- 
tion of France and possibly take back a wrong 
impression of the French people, were it not for 
the plan of our government and our navy to 
give them a vacation trip to Paris. 

So beginning July 15 and continuing until 
Aug. 30 the U. S. Jackies are arriving in Paris 
at the rate of from 1,000 to 1,200 a day. Each 
ship's crew is given five days' leave, both of- 
ficers and men, which gives them three full days 

162 



WHEN OUR JACK TAR CAME TO PAREE 

in Paris, besides the journey across France 
from Brest. 

1 ' I think that is the most wonderful idea of 
your government," said my French cousin, 
Cecile, to me the other day, when she admired 
a group of our trim American Jackies on the 
Champs Elysees, and I was telling her about it. 
" No one thought of doing anything like that 
for our French soldiers. They only saw the 
districts in which they fought. Think what your 
boys will see and what an education it will be 
for them ! ' ' 

The tremendous problem of housing and car- 
ing for these sailors in Paris confronted the 
navy. The Champs du Mars barracks and can- 
teen, conducted by the Red Cross, for the hous- 
ing of the personnel of the army and navy in 
Paris, was slated to be closed July 15, when the 
Bed Cross demobilized. The navy appealed 
to the Paris Y. M. C. A., and the Y. immediately 
jumped into the breach, took over the Champs 
du Mars barracks, which accommodates 1,500 
men, and began operations on July 15 without 
a break in the service. 

Arrangements for the transfer of the bar- 
163 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



racks from the Eed Cross to the navy were 
handled by Lieut. C. H. Husted, naval assistant 
provost marshal in the Paris district. M. H. 
Bickham, regional director of the Paris Y., 
who conducted its negotiations, had the interests 
of the sailor lads particularly at heart, having 
been head of the Y. at the Great Lakes training 
station before coming overseas. James G. Con- 
nor, director of train service and information 
department of the Paris Y., was installed as 
director of the Champs du Mars, which will be 
operated until the navy leave closes on August 
30. Admiral Long is commander of the U. S. 
naval forces in Paris and Commander Lawther 
has charge of this phase of the work. 

It includes, in addition to the Champs du 
Mars barracks, the keeping open of three Y. 
hotels, a theater and a sightseeing department 
of twelve autos, together with tours to the 
fronts, to give the navy boys a chance to see 
the city and its environs. 

So when your Jackie arrives in Paris, don't 
imagine him standing helpless and confused in 
the great seething depots. He is hardly out of 
the railway carriage door, before he is grabbed 

164 



WHEN OUR JACK TAR CAME TO PAREE 

by a Y. man, shooed to one of the big army 
trucks in waiting and whirled through the 
streets to the Champs du Mars barracks. This 
is right under the nose of the big Eiffel Tower, 
in the most picturesque part of the city. 

I stood within the tented walls of the Champs 
du Mars the other morning when a delegation 
of six hundred blue-clad sailor lads from Brest 
filed in. I talked with a number of them, clean- 
looking, fresh-cheeked American boys, who 
wore their jaunty caps at a dashing angle and 
with a salt-tar. air. One told me he had been 
in the navy a year and a half. " Yes, this is 
the first time I have gotten to Paris," he said 
and his eyes sparkled in anticipation of the 
great treat. 

In a double row of twenty tents, back of the 
main barracks, the boys are lodged for one 
franc a night. The long rows of cots had 
smooth clean white sheets and everything was 
neat and in order. This barracks boasts of the 
only shower baths in Paris. In the long mess 
hall I caught sight of a bouquet of field flowers 
stuck into a fruit jar, making a colorful table 
adornment. At the farther end was a canteen 

165 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



where a good lunch was to be had for fifty cen- 
times. I got in line for an ice cream cone at the 
canteen and it was real American ice cream. 

In the big reading and lounging room of the 
barracks soldiers and sailors w T ere reading and 
talking. In an outer tented room, a steady 
stream of Jack Tars was lined up, enroute to 
the registration desk. Lieut. Husted, naval pa- 
trol officer, constitutes himself an information 
rather than a police department, and is en- 
thusiastic that the navy boys should have the 
time of their lives. Miss Van Dyke has charge 
of arranging a series of social affairs between 
the American forces and the French people. 

His three days in Paris, if Jackie desires, 
may run on this schedule : First day, sightsee- 
ing tour of Paris in big army trucks with special 
guide to the galleries, museums, and places of 
historic interest. Second day to Chateau 
Thierry, Eheims, over battlefields. Third day, 
Versailles, palace and gardens. 

Of course there are other trips conducted by 
the Y. that he may take : To Fountainbleau, 
the home of the French kings ; to la Malmaison, 
chateau and grounds, the former home of Na- 

166 



WHEN OUR JACK TAR CAME TO PAREE 

poleon and Josephine ; to Chantilly, the chateau 
of the Conde, with its museum and art treas- 
ures, and the boat trip on the Seine. There is a 
Hugo's " Les Miserables " trip, covering points 
mentioned in the book, and another trip to the 
Gobelin tapestry works, the famous 300 years 
old state factory. A trip to the Paris sewers 
is of special interest to engineers. A Sevres 
pottery trip goes to the famous state pottery 
factory and museum of Ceramics and one few 
miss is to the Catacombs of Paris. From Jan. 
18 to July 5 the Paris Y. handled almost 700,000 
men and officers on sightseeing trips. At one 
time they ran 21 cars on motor trips in Paris 
alone and had 117 guides. There are still fifty 
guides in the service. 

Then if your Sailor Boy has an evening left 
of his precious three days, he can go to the 
Albert Premiere theater, a most delightful and 
artistic place, where good shows, movies and 
vaudeville are put on nightly expressly for him. 
The theater has a seating capacity of 500. This 
is the only one of the three theaters, operated 
by the Paris Y., that is still open. The Champs 
Elysees theater, the largest of these, and seating 

167 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



4,000, closed a few weeks ago. Its rental was 
$50,000 for the three months' season and after- 
ward $300 a night. No soldier nor sailor paid 
admission. His uniform was his pass. These 
Y. theaters have been, on special occasions, 
given over to the K. of C. 's and the Jewish Wel- 
fare Board for entertainments. 

From the Champs du Mars I was taken on 
an inspection tour of the three hotels still 
operated by the Paris Y. and where the over- 
flow of sailor lads is cared for. We lunched 
at the Garden, which probably is better known 
than any other Y. place, excepting the general 
foyer, to every American with the colors who 
got to Paris. The Garden, as its name implies, 
is an outdoor canteen, where you take your 
cafeteria tray and sit at small tables in the 
garden, under big, old trees, and enjoy a real 
American meal, with a heaping soupdish full 
of ice cream at the finish. 

The history of this war will never be com- 
plete until someone composes an epic to the 
American ice cream abroad, vast amounts of 
which were consumed over here by our Army 
and Navy, and how much it had to do with the 

168 



WHEN OUR JACK TAR CAME TO PAREE 

ultimate victory. Someone with a keen knowl- 
edge of psychology discovered that a lad could 
not be actually unhappy and eat ice cream at 
one and the same time. Next to letters from 
home, ice cream was the chief panacea for home- 
sickness and the champion consoler. 

And had the Paris Y. done nothing else than 
rush special mechanical freezers across the 
ocean, and opened its own ice cream plant, with 
a capacity of 2,000 gallons a day, it would have 
rendered an incalculable service to humanity. 
I was even allowed here to stand in awe before 
the only ice cream soda fountain in Paris, prob- 
ably in Europe, brought all the way from the 
States, but there were too many in line ahead 
to wait to be served. 

But I am digressing from the Garden itself, 
where J. H. Strawbridge, the general secretary, 
with a force of thirty operates the quaint, high- 
walled-in garden and its hotel. The hotel ac- 
commodates 150 men and it has a "mother's 
corner," where a kindly,, smiling, American 
woman sews on buttons and listens to troubles 
with an open heart and a sympathetic word. 
Twelve hundred soldiers and sailors are fed 

169 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



daily in this canteen and its lemonade and post- 
card stand has a record of 2,300 individual 
sales in one day. Its big lounging rooms are 
attractive and its secretary may often be found 
standing over a chap at a desk, who has a puz- 
zled, faraway look in his eyes, and murmuring 
to him: " It is spelled L-O-V-E, Boy." 

From there we went to the Hotel Rochester, 
which since opening on Dec. 1, has accommo- 
dated 75,000 men. It is located in a modern 
building and has rooms for 400. In June its 
cafeteria served 11,806 men at an average cost 
to the men of one franc, 41 centimes, not quite 
30 cents. This is noteworthy considering the 
high price of food today in Paris. 

1 1 We try to break even on the cost of food, ' ' 
said the manager, W. A. White. " The men 
get lodging for two francs a night, a cot with 
fresh linen, towels, soap and plenty of hot 
water." Here the soldiers and sailors may also 
get their money changed and are given any 
service required. All of the soldier theatrical 
talent has been billeted at the Rochester. One 
company of 154 men, the cast of the 88th divi- 
sion show, "Who Can Tell," was quartered 

170 



WHEN OUR JACK TAR CAME TO PAREE 

here while their performance was running at 
the Champs Elysees theater. The hotel has an 
American staff of fourteen, augmented by nine- 
teen French help. They say it is some problem 
to get them to work harmoniously together. It 
operates also a dry canteen and a large check 
room. 

The Hotel Pavilion is the largest of the three 
hotels now operated by the Paris Y., accommo- 
dating 500, of whom 60% are now sailors. It 
has excellent rooms for three francs a night. 
Titus K. Witwer of Philadelphia is its director, 
a splendid type of Y. secretary, earnest, en- 
thusiastic and approachable. He tells a story 
of the Frenchwoman who came to him recently 
and asked him to find a husband for her daugh- 
ter. ' ' But, Madame, ' ' he protested, ' ' I am 
running a Y. hotel not a matrimonial bureau." 
She was insistent — she wanted her daughter to 
marry an American soldier and felt he was 
just the person to choose the right kind. 

General Pershing visited the Hotel Pavilion, 
as did Mrs. "Wilson while she was in Paris. 
It has a large assembly room with a stage for 
entertainments and dances. There is vaudeville, 

171 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



also movies nightly, with frequent matinees, 
and Monday is dance night. There is a billiard 
room, a big double dining room, a wonderfully 
clean, modern equipped kitchen with big pan- 
tries, wet and dry canteens, shoe shine chairs 
and a barber shop. In a sunny library with 
writing tables is its " mother's corner " where 
a boy gets advice and mending and sympathy 
all at the same time. One of the pleasant hotel 
features is afternoon tea and coming in from 
a long, cold, sightseeing tour it is a great favor- 
ite with the boys. They have music, tea, cakes 
and lemonade every day at 5 o'clock. On Sun- 
day afternoons a French orchestra plays. The 
hotel staff includes thirty Y. men and women 
with 118 French help. The accommodation in 
finance is one of its chief activities. Money 
is exchanged and checks cashed at all hours, in- 
cluding Sundays. From here the boys may send 
money home without cost and there is a safety 
deposit vault. 

But the Hotel Pavilion's greatest service is 
to the stranded soldier or sailor lad. Cots and 
beds are provided and also meals furnished free 
to those who cannot pay for them. They have 

172 



WHEN OUR JACK TAR CAME TO PAREE 

100 free cots and they are always occupied. 
Special care is taken, when a lad has to avail 
himself of these, to have him understand that 
it is not a charity, but provided by the home 
folks. The hotel has consistently shown a loss 
which is its proof that it is measuring up to its 
policy of the best service and no profit. 

The Hotel Richmond, in the Rue d'Helder, is 
an officers' hotel with 125 rooms and where 
about 200 meals are served daily. I was con- 
ducted through its ground floor. It did not ap- 
pear more attractive than the hotels of the pri- 
vates, though its dining room was larger and 
the service more elaborate. 

So from this you will gather that you need 
have little fear for your Jackie Boy in Paris, 
if he has had the right home training. Here is 
a sign I saw that day in several of the barracks 
and hotels : 

Have You Kept Faith with the Folks at Home? 
Watch Your Step, Buddy. 

They are showing your sailor lad the time of 
his young life in ' ' gay Paree ' ' these days — 
and they are safeguarding him at that. 

173 



CHAPTER XIV 

WITH THE AMERICAN COMMITTEE FOR DEVASTATED 
FRANCE 

Aug. 11. 

SHE is the dearest little old Frenchwoman, 
is Madame Monpriver. She resides at 
Cutry. That is, if you would call a cave, that 
was once part of a stone quarry, a residence. 
She invited me into her damp, dark, ' ' carriere, ' ' 
just a big barn of a room, hewn out of stone 
and going straight into the side of a cliff. To 
be sure there are no windows, only a few planks 
up on the side walls where the tremble of earth 
from the big guns had knocked out huge pieces 
of stone. There is a, bed in one corner; near 
the door is a stove and opposite it a wooden 
table with the simplest of cooking utensils. Her 
neighbors in the adjoining caves, sweet faced 
old women, showed me through their apart- 
ments. One had graced her walls with some 
faded old prints. The most palatial of the caves 
had been partitioned into a suite of four rooms, 

174 



WITH THE AMERICAN COMMITTEE 

that penetrated far into its cold, gloomy depths. 
Twenty-two people had lived in this one cave 
all winter. Very human sort of people, too. 
Just the same as you and me. " Tres joli," I 
said as I gasped at the thought. It is very much 
warmer with the planks across the big holes 
near the top, they assured me. 

Madame Monpriver insisted upon showing 
me her old home. Locking the rude door of 
her cave habitation and dropping the big key 
into her capacious pocket, she trudged ahead of 
us up the winding road. A spry little grand- 
mother she was in a full, dark, skirt and loose 
blouse, with apron strings around the middle, 
and a wide, downward-brimmed, old straw hat 
shading what once must have been merry blue 
eyes. Past a turn in the ruin-bordered street 
and we came upon it. Heaps of stone and plas- 
ter, a few feet of upstanding wall; a solitary 
window opening, framed in jagged masonry, 
was all that was left of her once proud domicile. 
It must have been one of the pretentious homes 
of the village, for it was built around a large 
courtyard. 

"Ma cuisine" (my kitchen), she said nod- 
175 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



ding to the right. Her lips trembled and the 
tears ran down her wrinkled cheeks. All that 
was left of her kitchen was a mass of tangled 
debris, excepting the farther wall, where on a 
fragment, still upright, hung three stewpans 
on their separate pegs. One had a long handle 
and two had short ones. She turned away from 
them with mute suffering in her eyes. " I can't 
look at it, ' ' she said. How many times she must 
have placed those stewpans over the fire for 
their evening meal when she came in from the 
fields. 

Across the courtyard she pointed to a tumble 
of masonry — that had been her donkey's stall 
— the donkey that had lived through a couple 
of evacuations, too. A few German prisoners 
were at clearing work on the place. Up the 
path — and she pointed to their fields — she and 
her husband had tended and cared for these 
wide smiling fields of grain and potatoes. 
Across the road in grounds where part of a 
church tower still stood she led us to her garden. 
There were onions and beets in straight rows. 
At the end of the garden, were four crosses, 
the French soldier graves she cared for. The 
dates on the crosses were August and Septem- 

176 




Marshall Petain thanking the C. A. R. D. chauffeur girls after decorating them 
with the Croix de Guerre at Blerancourt, France. 








Dn a French dugout, like an inverted metal tureen, that once held a periscope. 

With Miss Converse of the Paris office (left) and Miss Rose Clark, chauffeur, 

(seated) of the American Committee for Devastated France. 



WITH THE AMERICAN COMMITTEE 

ber, 1918. Three of the graves have now been 
claimed. The wife of one of the fallen heroes 
had come only a few days before and was so 
grateful to her. On that grave was an ornate 
cluster of bead flowers that the French use for 
such adornment. 

Gradually she told me. They have suffered 
three evacuations during the war. In 1914 the 
Germans had gone through but had not de- 
stroyed the village. In 1917, when the tide of 
war again swept over them, they were forced 
again to leave their home. On May 31, 1918, she 
with her husband and a neighbor started on 
foot down the road, driving the donkey-cart, on 
which was piled a few of their more precious 
worldly possessions. She took along a cock 
and three hens. Her cow, she told me, her eyes 
filling again, had died on the way. Down the 
road they went, the noise of the big guns in 
their ears. They were not very welcome in 
some of the villages they passed through ; these 
people had cares enough with the battle raging 
just beyond their doorstep. Anyway, I learned 
one lost social prestige by becoming an evacuee. 
After some days they stopped in a village called 

177 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



Danville in the Eure et Loire, where she and 
her husband obtained work in the fields of a 
farm at three francs a day. On Sept. 8 they 
came back to Cutry to find their house and be- 
longings utterly demolished. 

Since then they have lived in the cave. 

* l You are brave, ' ' I tried to say. She turned 
to the pretty blonde in the horizon-blue uniform 
with the letters C. A. R. D. on her sleeve. ' ' We 
should have starved without The Committee," 
she replied. And the pretty girl patted her 
wrinkled hand with " Madame, do you remem- 
ber the day everybody in Cutry came to your 
cave, and we had coffee and we brought the 
graphophone and had music — and that day you 
cooked us the two eggs your hens laid? " " Oui, 
oui, Mademoiselle Rose," she laughed. " Oh, 
she is the joy of The Committee," said Rose 
Clark who had rushed me to Cutry to see how 
they peddled groceries from a camion to the 
villagers assembled in front of the caves. 

And what does C. A. R. D. mean and who is 
The Committee you want to ask? C. A. R. D. 
stands for Committee Americaine pour les Re- 
gions Devastees de la France. In English, 

178 



WITH THE AMERICAN COMMITTEE 

American Committee for Devastated France. 
Every repatriate in the region knows " The 
Committee ' ' and turns to it for everything from 
goats to bridal veils and from baby clothes to 
coffins. I had heard of it vaguely before com- 
ing over, as Anne Morgan's committee. Anne 
Morgan, its vice president, is the daughter of 
the late Pierpont Morgan of New York and 
millions. I have forgotten all the dire things 
Miss Morgan threatened would befall me if I 
dared mention her name with The Committee. 
But how can I be blamed if a work is known by 
its dominant spirit? Though two days in its 
midst convinced me there were seventy-nine 
other dominating spirits in that committee of 
eighty women, who are sharing intimately in the 
life of the people in the hundred villages in the 
department of the Aisne, now directly under 
their care. Mrs. A. M. Dike is commissioner for 
France. It was she to whom I had a letter of 
introduction from Miss Alice French (Octave 
Thanet) with the injunction to find out about 
shipping Iowa cows to help France. 

That is how I happened to land at Vic sur 
Aisne last Friday morning and a Ford camion- 

179 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



ette, speeded by the pretty blonde girl, swirled 
me up the road and jerked up in the courtyard 
in front of a green shuttered white house, that 
is The Committee headquarters at Vic — as 
they say for short. 

Helen Converse of the Paris office, who had 
been delegated to personally conduct me 
through a few of The Committee's villages, is 
from Columbus, Ohio, and was one of the two 
girls sent overseas by the Ohio Federation of 
Women's Clubs with the General Federation 
unit furlough home fund. She was connected 
with the leave area at Grenoble, France, until 
it closed recently when she was transferred to 
the C. A. R. D. 

A cheery-facecl manager welcomed me at the 
door, Isabel O'Connor, and taking my coat said 
briskly, ' ' You had better go right out to Mon- 
tigny if you want to see the baby clinic ' ' and 
we were soon Fording over the shell-dented 
road to the next village. 

It would have done the souls of our American 
baby week workers good to have stood in the 
little cottage room in that battered French ham- 
let, and to have seen the mothers, with their 

It V 

180 



WITH THE AMERICAN COMMITTEE 

babies, listening eagerly to the American Red 
Cross nurse advising each one in rapid French. 
And the little golden haired, three-year-old 
wailed bitterly when she was placed on the 
scales, in her birthday clothes, just as do her 
wee American cousins of that age. Mrs. Mary 
Breckenridge Thompson, a graduate nurse of 
St. Luke's, New York, is the devoted head of 
this work here, holding baby clinics in five big 
centers, which comprise fourteen communes. A 
commune is made up of a cluster of villages, 
sometimes as many as seven. In addition to 
looking after the health of sixty-eight babies 
under two years of age, she has weighed and 
measured over 400 children from the ages of 
2 to 6 years. 

Over the door of Mrs. Thompson's office in 
the dispensary at Vic, a wooden shack on the 
grounds back of the green shuttered house, some 
wag put the sign, found in a French trench, 
" Boyau des Chevres " (goat trench), because 
it was Mrs. Thompson who had sixty-three goats 
brought into the district and distributed among 
the families with little children. None of these 
children, under the age of four years, had ever 

181 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



before tasted fresh milk. Think of it! The 
cows had been taken by the invading army. And 
these children have had little canned milk. For 
that reason most of them are below normal. 
Mrs. Thompson has the cooperation of Dr. Ethel 
Fraser of the American Woman's hospital, and 
Dr. Ward, the Committee dentist at Vic, the 
latter having already cared for the teeth of 
600 children. 

Down the sunny road I heard children's 
voices singing " The Marseillaise," and, has- 
tening, we came upon a pretty sight. Twenty 
little folks, standing in the dusty roadway were 
singing the hymn lustily, under the folds of 
Old Glory and the fluttering tri-color of France. 
It was the Jardin d'Enfants unit, the French 
for kindergarten, and is one of the three out- 
door schools conducted by Rachel Clark of 
Holyoke, Mass., and Ada Milne of New York. 
All organizations cooperate here in the work 
of rehabilitating the war child. The French 
peasant always comes back to his ancestral 
acres, and this Aisne region being the richest 
agricultural section in France, the government 
is anxious he should return to till his fields. 

182 



WITH THE AMERICAN COMMITTEE 

But the growing child is of the first importance. 

We came back to Vic for luncheon in the cool 
green-shuttered house, The Committee head- 
quarters. The tired doctor was called from 
the table by word that an accident had happened 
to one of the villagers. Every day someone 
tries to pick up a loaded shell and then it is 
either a hospital case or the population is de- 
creased. A little French girl, with charming 
manners, brought in a huge bunch of roses for 
the nurse — all the mother had to send to show 
her gratitude. 

The afternoon trip took us to what is left of 
Ambleny, with its ancient tower, through Laver- 
sine, into Fontenoy with its destroyed chateau. 
Near Nouvron we got out of the car to see a 
French dugout, like an inverted metal tureen, 
which had once held a periscope. At Nouvron 
they are building barracks for the returning 
people. At Tartiers I talked with a group of 
refugees. They had been back since Easter, 
trying to make the old place livable. Many of 
these women and children had been carried 
north by the Germans, then sent into Switzer- 



183 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



land and thence to the south of France, and 
are just sifting back to their native soil. 

In the early evening at Vic we wandered out 
on the village street, past the broken buildings 
that form three sides of the town square, and 
I listened to the story of the fete of the week 
before, when 500 people assembled there on the 
fifth anniversary of the declaration of war. All 
the village shops had closed down that the peo- 
ple might help The Committee decorate in 
Allied flags and pennants. There were games 
and races for the adults. A band from Com- 
piegne had played for the dancing. The chil- 
dren had their fete in the chateau grounds. 

As we reached the chateau, the beautiful 
young Countess de Riese, in a white frock and 
wide-brimmed, white garden hat, came to the 
big iron gates and invited us in. She took us 
over the once magnificent grounds and gardens, 
now wrecked through the fortunes of war. 
Every few steps she would caution us to look 
out for the deep shell holes that peppered the 
open lawn. The century old trees are gashed 
and torn. From the terrace the house, a stately 
old castle, appeared a hollow shell, only its outer 

184 



WITH THE AMERICAN COMMITTEE 

walls standing. A handsome fountain was 
crushed, but its statuary had been carried to 
Paris as had many of the valuable paintings in 
the home, she told us. The donjon, for this is 
one of those medieval castles, had the upper 
part of its tower shattered. It was her father, 
the old Count de Riese, who on the night he 
heard the bridge across the Aisne had been 
mined by the Germans, took one of his men and 
creeping out on to the bridge cut the wires. 
Thus he had saved the people of his village, 
enabling them to cross the river the next day 
and escape toward Soissons. For that he wears 
the decoration of the Legion of Honor. 

I spent the night in The Committee head- 
quarters at Vic, in comfortable barracks on the 
grounds. The next morning, looking out of 
the window, I saw a long line waiting at the 
door of the dispensary across the lawn. The 
French doctor of the village being ill had turned 
his patients over to The Committee doctor. 
Most of these patients were Germans from the 
prisoners at work at Vic. 

Before leaving I went through The Commit- 
tee store on the headquarters grounds at Vic. 

185 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



Here a long string of people was waiting with 
baskets and bags. Beans and lamps, and sugar 
and clothes were being sold at cost or less, minus 
the price of shipping. To the destitute neces- 
sities are given outright. They are allowed to 
give notes on their war indemnity in payment 
for household supplies. The idea is to help 
these people help themselves, not to pauperize 
them. Miss O'Connor, the manager pro tern 
in the unit quarters at Vic, was at the store 
desk. She was in England when the war broke 
out. " I was so ashamed of the Americans who 
rushed back I just made up my mind to stay 
over and help," she told me. She has done 
everything from working in a canteen in Lon- 
don's east end to making Red Cross dressings 
at Cannes. She was listening sympathetically 
to the account of the loss of a pig and trying 
to count money when I came up to say good- 
bye. 

We reached the C. A. R. D. headquarters at 
Blerancourt shortly before noon, the village in 
which the American Committee did its first 
work. It was here, hardly 50 miles north- 
east of Paris, in June, 1917, that Field-Marshal 

186 



"WITH THE AMERICAN COMMITTEE 

Petain established a group of ten American 
women. In 1914 the Germans had rolled over 
this district in a rush that had carried them 
almost to the walls of Paris. For long weary 
months the .villagers had suffered under Ger- 
man taskmasters. Then in 1917 came the great 
advance in which the troops of the kaiser had 
been pushed back and France set about rehabil- 
itating the region. The Committee worked un- 
der the French army and for that reason is 
permitted to wear the French uniform of hori- 
zon-blue. 

Food was raised in the devastated areas, 
utensils and implements provided, livestock and 
poultry brought in, fruit trees planted and seed 
distributed. In March, 1918, the Germans 
surged forward again towards the Seine, and 
the grey horde came so close to Blerancourt that 
orders came for the evacuation of its people. 
The C. A. R. D. motor corps girls carried refu- 
gees day and night and the drivers slept in their 
cars. For a week the women in the field never 
took off their clothes. Many people brought 
their children to The Committee for safety. 

Then it was The Committee withdrew to Vic 
187 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



sur Aisne, only in June to be obliged to fall 
back to Jaignes. Along the way they opened 
canteens for the soldiers and one has a record 
of serving 45,000 men in a week. Now The 
Committee is engaged in doing emergency re- 
lief, transporting food and clothing and in per- 
manent rehabilitation and has two other units, 
at Laon and at Soissons. The children left in 
their care are in their school at Boullay Thierry. 
In Blerancourt I was taken into the only 
workshop in the devastated regions. There 
they have 30 French artisans and 40 German 
prisoners at work making school desks, window 
frames, doors and all the woodwork for the re- 
pair of the buildings. It is a busy place, that 
atelier, with great saws whirring and hammers 
clicking. Here they make, too, a concrete build- 
ing block of sandstone and cement and there is a 
blacksmith's shop with its forge. I crossed the 
street to see one of the little stores in its new re- 
pair clothes, freshly painted, and just beside it 
was a shell-smashed building waiting for its 
turn. Blerancourt is a huddle of ruins, where 
once 3,000 people lived, 1,000 are now back. 
Here I also visited the American Women's 

188 



WITH THE AMERICAN COMMITTEE 

hospital with its ten wards. It cooperates with 
the C. A. R. D. 

At Saint Paul aux Bois, where we motored be- 
fore luncheon, I almost saw a tragedy. St. Paul 
aux Bois is a little smashed-up village a couple 
of miles from Blerancourt where about 50 of 
the 150 people are back. I was walking along 
the road with a C. A. R. D. chauffeur, and she 
was saying, " Right in this place a baby was 
born a couple of months ago. We rushed our 
doctor out here when we got the word — sure 
you can go in. ' ' It was one of those corrugated 
iron houses. The huge corrugated iron domes 
the Boche used for dugouts have been taken 
over by many of the French peasants. They 
are placed against the remnants of an old wall, 
needing nothing but an entrance to complete 
a snug habitation. Of course there are no 
windows, but who is fussy about ventilation 
when a good roof is to be had? We had hardly 
stepped inside when the chauffeur girl ex- 
claimed in dismay, pointing to a squashy pack- 
age on the table — "Look! They brought the 
cakes to the wrong place. They were meant 
for the wedding. Someone brought them here 

189 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



instead. Isn't that the worst"? Now I suppose 
the wedding's over and they didn't have any 
cake! " Outside the door two hungry-eyed lit- 
tle boys were watching the cake package. 

Just down the road came the wedding party 
from the church. The bride in her white dress 
and the veil The Committee had found for her, 
and the groom, a French poilu, in his bright 
uniform with truly white kid gloves. And 
streaming in their wake some twenty relatives. 
In the group was the mother with the new baby, 
the latter blinking in the sunlight. For its age 
that infant hadn't missed much. They came 
straight up to me, the smiling bride — most of 
her front teeth were missing, but she looked 
very happy, even if her veil appeared sus- 
piciously like a window curtain. It was draped 
with wonderful French art and she had a spray 
of white flowers on her dress. The honors were 
divided between the blushing bride and the 
blinking-eyed baby in the arms of its proud 
mother. Up the road the summer winds were 
blowing four French flags over the bride 's home, 
where they went for the wedding feast. Oh, 
yes, The Committee had sent the flags too, but 

190 



WITH THE AMERICAN COMMITTEE 

there were two American flags that the family 
had gotten elsewhere to show their apprecia- 
tion. So the cakes were rescued from the home 
of the St. Paul aux Bois baby and graced the 
wedding breakfast after all. 

From Blerancourt we went through Saint 
Aubin, past a village whose houses were mined, 
through Ghmy and up on the summit of a high 
hill to Coucy le Chateau. Someone quoted, 
11 King I cannot be, vassal I will not be, I am 
the Count de Coucy." The old feudal chateau 
dates back to the days of the Crusaders and all 
the village was within its thick walls. It is 
today another Pompeii. It was taken by the 
French September 18, 1918, after it had been 
mined by the Germans. 

At Anizy we stopped for a drink of water and 
were served tea by two delightful women in the 
hut of the French Bed Cross. They cautioned 
us to touch no shells on the battlefield, two men 
having been blown up there the day before. 
Through Pinon, we passed groups of Chinese 
workmen and to Chavignan, over a terribly 
battered road and then we were on the Chemin 
du Dames. 

191 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



I don't remember which one of the Louis 
kings it was who had a chateau in the neighbor- 
hood and, because he drove over this road with 
his lady loves, it was called ' ' Road of the 
Ladies " — the Chemin du Dames. Today this 
road is hallowed with the best blood of America 
and France. A sector of ghastly memories it is 
with its trenches, its dugouts, with live ammuni- 
tion and hand grenades, its shell-torn fields and 
stark tree-trunks. You find a new heart-ache 
wherever your eyes turn, looking to the right 
and left, as you motor to Soissons over that 
once pleasure highway, the Chemin du Dames. 

And here I am reminded that to write of the 
' ' Card ' ' and to omit a tribute to its chauffeurs 
is to overlook its real live wires. They make a 
ride in a Chicago taxi seem like a moonlight 
stroll in Yellowstone Park. It was Van who was 
at the wheel all that sweltering August day. In 
New York's blue book you will find her name — 
Catherine Glen Van Rensselaer. She is a beau- 
tiful type and I should judge she is all of 
21. Her mother is vice-chairman of the Na- 
tional League of Women 's Service. Persuading 
her family to consent to her leaving boarding 

192 



WITH THE AMERICAN COMMITTEE 

school to come across and convincing passport 
officials that she was old enough to come almost 
brought a tiny wrinkle between her level brows, 
but she got over in February after having 
driven an army ambulance in New York for six 
months. ''No,, we don't call ourselves motor 
girls — just chaufs — it's the short for chauf- 
feurs, ' ' she told me. I watched her change tires 
on the road to Blerancourt where one on a 
front wheel breathed its last. It was a new 
tire and any mechanician can tell you what that 
means — cutting the rubber to fit in the valve, 
since that tire and a Ford were never made for 
one another. These girls do all the work on 
their cars. If any New York manicurist can get 
their hands in trim for society in five years she 
will be a wonder. Nothing ruffled Van but a 
camion ahead. After passing the eighth in a 
cloud of dust, she was saying "I'd just crawled 
out from under my car the other day when a 
limousine of notables with Miss Morgan dashed 
up, and I was ordered to go with them to show 
them the road. I was a sight — oil and grease 
and smudge on my face, but they couldn 't wait 
so I jumped in. We got to the Laon unit and 

193 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



they were all dressed up in their best uniforms. 
I looked like something the cat had dragged in. 
They must have been disgusted with me. Say, 
you wouldn't take a picture of the Jack Rabbit, 
too, would you T " I looked around for the rab- 
bit. Only wide trenched fields of flowers, wild 
turnip, chicory, golden rod and red poppies 
were in sight. ' ' Oh, that 's the name of my car. ' ' 
Only she said it " Cah," as they do in New 
Yawk. " It was Barbara's ; yes, Barbara Allen. 
She won the Croix de Guerre with it. The Jack 
Rabbit would ride lots easier if it hadn't beeu 
through a couple of evacuations. Piling a car 
full of people with a dozen or more hanging to 
the outside and evacuating with it isn't really 
good for it, but I just love the Jack Rabbit." 
It was Marshal Petain himself who pinned the 
Croix de Guerre on The Committee chaufs last 
fall. 

No better work is being done over here than 
by this American Committee for Devastated 
France, whose workers are all paying their own 
way. It has cost $60,000 to carry the work this 
far. They need $2,000,000 to finance it for the 
coming year. It means food, clothing, the re- 

194 



WITH THE AMERICAN COMMITTEE 

claiming of the soil — I passed one of the Amer- 
ican tractors they have brought in to help the 
cooperative agricultural societies farm the land. 
It means helping these brave-hearted people to 
rebuild and re-establish their homes and 
schools, building up the health of their children. 
It means putting new hope and new strength 
into shattered lives. 

" Do you mean to tell me that you have lived 
all your life in New York and are actually sorry 
to leave these little deserted villages after six 
months here ? " I asked Rose Clark, who had 
been at the wheel of the camionette the day be- 
fore. " Oh yes, I love it here," she said, with 
glowing cheeks. And I recalled how far these 
girls were from Paris with its theaters and 
cafes, how far from the Rue de la Paix with its 
show windows of beautiful gowns and costly 
gems. 

This is the enthusiasm with which they work 
— this devoted band of women. If your heart 
is with bleeding France, you must be interested 
in the work of the C. A. R. D. 



195 



CHAPTER XV 

IN SACKED AND BURNED TERMONDE, BELGIUM 

Brussels, Aug. 22. 

YESTERDAY I sat in the battered office of 
the Burgomaster of the Belgian city of 
Termonde and heard from his own lips the 
story of the firing of the town. Not by shells 
from the big guns, but by wanton and system- 
atic destruction had it been done. ' ' When 
the Germans entered the city on Sept. 4, 1914, 
only a few buildings had been wrecked by their 
artillery," he said, " but on the following day, 
the afternoon of Sept. 5, fifteen German en- 
gineers were set to work to burn, one in each 
street." And this quaint little city, in reprisal 
for some fancied wrong or to terrify its popula- 
tion, was made the victim of the torch. When 
they finished their work, 1,252 buildings were in 
embers. Only 98 houses remain unharmed in 
Termonde today. 

For twenty-six years has Oktaaf de Leye been 
196 



IN SACKED AND BURNED TERMONDE 

Sekretaris der Stad, which is the Belgian for 
chief civic officer of the city of Dendermonde, 
the Flemish for Termonde. He wears the pur- 
ple ribbon of the Order of King Leopold, in 
recognition of his quarter century of civic serv- 
ice. For four years, during the German occu- 
pation, he had a bitter time. He had to work 
for the Germans, so very hard, and he and his 
family never had enough food. The enemy req- 
uisitioned all their food supplies, their horses, 
their cattle, everything. This kindly-faced, 
white haired man, with his gentle voice, did not 
complain, he just told about it simply. He 
smiled sadly when I asked what they had done 
to him, and holding out his thin, aristocratic 
hands, said, ' ' I lost 23 kilos in weight during 
the German occupation." (A kilo is something 
over two pounds.) Three times they had come 
to take him to prison — and then they found 
they needed his services and each time he was 
permitted to go back to his home. 

Many of the women of the town had been 
imprisoned because they had gone out to farms 
to buy potatoes. Their provisions were taken 
away from them and they were locked up. So 

197 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



many children had died of malnutrition. They 
had no milk. 

About 7,500 of the original population of 
10,000 are back and living in a most precarious 
way in the remnants of the burned buildings. 
The state pays 75 per cent and the town 25 per 
cent of their actual necessities, but everything 
is so high they have little besides food, even 
now. 

Though it was a busy day in his office and M. 
de Leye was being constantly interrupted by 
clerks, he took the time to tell us something of 
what he had seen in the terrible years just past 
and then, taking his hat, went with us to show 
us how his people had to live. He said he did 
not understand how many got along at all as 
the sanitary conditions were often very bad. 
There had been typhus this year. 

From the windows of his office could be seen 
a stately, ruined pile of what once must have 
been a handsome home. He led us through the 
courtyard into what had been the kitchen, the 
only room now intact. Three beds, tables, 
chairs, and a stove showed it to be the crowded 
living quarters of a large family. Then the 

198 



IN SACKED AND BURNED TERMONDE 

gendarme or police officer who accompanied 
us on the tour took us to the home of his officer 
friend in a couple of tiny back rooms in what 
had once been a big house with a garden. The 
mother, holding a plump, blue-eyed infant of 
three months, told us she had seven children. 
The place was incredibly neat. We even climbed 
the ladder-like stairway to a room above, with 
rows of sleeping cots, where the clean odor of 
scrubbed floors came in spite of the cramped 
living conditions. She had gone away with her 
children when the Germans first came, the 
mother told me, but she only remained a few 
months. Her husband was working in Ter- 
monde and she came back to be with him and 
had lived here during the four years of German 
occupation. 

" You understand, they were not poor peo- 
ple; they were in very comfortable circum- 
stances before the war; her husband was a 
friend of this gendarme with us," said Capt. 
Raymond de Bisschop, attache of the Belgian 
central office of information, who accompanied 
us as guide and interpreter. Capt. de Bisschop 
has seen distinguished service on all the Belgian 

199 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



fronts and his knowledge of Flemish made it 
possible to get the personal story from these 
people who had been through the harrowing 
years of the war and occupation. 

Everywhere about the queer narrow streets 
— Termonde is different from many Belgian 
cities — everywhere the fine-looking old burgo- 
master was saluted or greeted with the most 
elaborate respect. I caught looks of devotion 
following his slightly bent figure as he moved 
energetically through the cobbled lanes. He 
told us three factories — cotton mills — had 
opened for work, but there would be no rebuild- 
ing until next year. 

One incident he related when asked of Ger- 
man treatment of the people. The burgomasters 
of the vicinity had called a meeting to consider 
civic problems and had forgotten to ask permis- 
sion of the German military authorities to hold 
the gathering. They were fined 38,000 marks 
for the oversight. 

The American Red Cross had helped Ter- 
monde so much, he told me; they had sent 
50,000 francs. What they need now is furni- 
ture, beds, tables, chairs, linens, as these articles 

200 



IN SACKED AND BURNED TERMONDE 

are so expensive here. In most cases the houses 
were looted before they were burned so there is 
nothing left. 

The offices of the city administration are still 
in the remnants of a partly burned building 
where they were removed from the Palace de 
Justice, which the Germans ironically occupied. 
Their windows look out on gaunt, crumbling- 
walls and piles of brick and stone, what had 
once been a prosperous city. Here in his office 
the courtly old Burgomaster sat back in his 
worn arm chair for a snapshot from my kodak, 
the sunshine streaming over his white head that 
had seen so many sorrows for his people. But 
before he bade us goodbye I learned that the 
war had pierced even a deeper wound into his 
brave heart. Taking out his card case he 
handed me a picture of his daughter, a charm- 
ing girl looking like a spirited young American 
type. She had died in 1915 in England. Then, 
in a voice not quite clear, he told the Captain. 
One night, up a dark street, he had been fired 
upon and the shock of the attack on her father 
had made the girl ill. They sent her to Eng- 
land — but she had never recovered. And the 

201 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



intrepid old man had stayed by his city to the 
finish. He asked me to accept the picture of his 
daughter. I tried to refuse but the captain as- 
sured me that the father considered it an honor 
if I would take it. Such is the friendly courtesy 
of these people who have suffered so much. 
No souvenir I could get holds such poignant 
memories as that picture of the Belgian girl, 
the daughter of Termonde's Burgomaster. 

I came close to the Belgian invasion twice be- 
fore reaching Termonde. And it was all due to 
an English inner tube. The English novelist, 
who, with his wife, completed the party in the 
car admitted the tire was alright even though 
it was an American tire. It was the inner tube 
and that was English. 

At the village of Aasche the automobile came 
to its first forced halt and I talked to two peas- 
ant women. With the captain as translator of 
the Flemish, I learned something of what the 
four years of German occupation had meant to 
them. The building before which they stood 
looked like it had been through an explosion. 
They said that happened the day after the ar- 
mistice when the Germans were leaving. They 

202 



IN SACKED AND BURNED TERMONDE 

had some shells near the depot and they set 
them off, blowing up the depot and several build- 
ings in the town and shattering many windows. 
About twenty Germans were killed. They had 
been drunk, " drink Schnapps," the one woman 
said and didn't get out of the depot in time. In 
the next village, Lebbeke, they told us four men 
trying to go into a house when the Germans 
marched into the town were captured, made to 
dig their own graves, and, then, their hands 
bound behind their backs, taken out and shot. 
Though only badly wounded they were buried 
and could still be seen moving under the earth. 
Then the soldiers fired down into the graves. 

At Opwyck, where the car had more difficulty, 
I went into the quaint white farm where I met 
Mme. Marie Elpeec. Mme. Elpeec wore a pic- 
turesque three cornered red shawl over her 
head and was the old Flemish peasant type. 
For four years they had housed German sol- 
diers on their farm. Often when they came the 
whole family had to give up their beds, she 
said. Once they had protested. She has eight 
children and with her three grandchildren there 
were eleven of them in the house and she said 

203 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



they had no room for the soldiers, for the cot- 
tage is very small. ' ' We were told we could 
sleep here," she said, pointing to the cobbled 
stones of the courtyard. " They even took the 
bread from our children and whipped the chil- 
dren. When they left they took our clothes 
along. And everything is so expensive. They 
took away our horse and cow immediately. We 
had six or seven soldiers quartered here all the 
time. Once as many as fifty. ' ' She told me no 
children of their village had been harmed but in 
the next town a little girl of six and a boy 
about fifteen had been shot. The children were 
trying to carry food to their parents and had 
protested when the potatoes and bread were 
taken from them by German soldiers. 

One of the men who came to watch the re- 
pairs on the car said a German soldier had 
shot himself in the village and four civilians 
had been arrested for it. But the doctor found 
it was suicide and they had been released. 

So this is first hand incidents on German 
terrorizing of the people, these simple Belgian 
folk. Mme. Elpeec wanted to cook coffee for 



204 



IN SACKED AND BURNED TERMONDE 

us for they are wonderfully hospitable with the 
little they have. And they are taking up their 
lives again with a fine, simple, courage that 
moves one to admiration. 

At Termonde innumerable children with 
wooden shoes clustered about us wherever we 
went. On the road back to Brussels we met 
family parties walking from one village to an- 
other for fetes. In one, the old street lighter 
trudged along with his long-handled torch over 
his shoulder and the lamps in metal brackets, 
fastened against the sides of buildings, blinked 
their rays of hope into the deepening gloom. 
The clatter of the wooden sabots was often 
heard. Most of the women and children wear 
these wooden shoes, for leather is so scarce 
and high. 

Brussels is said to be gayer than Paris these 
days but if it is it certainly needs some gaiety to 
forget the four years of its taskmasters. The 
country about is wonderfully fertile, the crops 
promise large and these people who have en- 
dured hunger and unspeakable privation for 
four years are doing their best to rebuild. If 



205 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



it had not been for plucky little Belgium who 
knows what the result might have been. Keep 
your hearts open for Belgium — it will be many 
long years until her scars of war are healed. 



206 



CHAPTER XVI 

at Belgium's great divide — the yser 

Brussels, Aug. 26. 

WHERE occupied Belgium meets unoccu- 
pied Belgium is today a desolate spot! 
I stood on the rickety, temporary bridge span- 
ning the River Yser, which there at Dixmude 
is just thirty yards wide, and gazed at a tum- 
bled panorama that for four long years was 
the fought-for key to the coast, to Dunkirk and 
Calais. It was the limit of the German in- 
vasion, the Great Divide. Between the Belgian 
trenches on one side and the German trenches 
on the other bank of that 90 foot canal, there 
is written in vivid Allied blood, " Not an inch 
farther shall you go." The young Dixmude 
lad, William Doheyn, who sold me postcards and 
chocolate at his stand across the road from the 
big German dugout, had been a soldier in the 
trenches on the opposite shore of the river, 
ninety feet from his home town, for four years, 

207 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



and was never able to get over home until the 
armistice. 

I have just returned from two illuminating 
clays at the Belgian front. 

And I brought back a tremendous admira- 
tion for gallant little Belgium and her heroic 
people. 

I have been to Ypres, where street after 
street of skeleton walls is all that tells of once 
handsome buildings and the cozy homes of 
twenty thousand people. But here I found 
gratifying reconstruction work in progress. 
Sixty-seven new houses have been built of the 
three hundred to be erected and two thousand 
people are back occupying these temporary 
homes, made possible through the King Albert 
fund. The big, hopeful, sign in Belgium today 
is these temporary cottages provided for the 
returning people. I saw none living in cellars 
and caves as in Northern France. Everywhere 
there is wonderful cleanliness and a make-the- 
best-of-it spirit. Then, too, Belgium has some 
of the most beautiful cities in Europe and they 
are now shaking off the lethargy of German oc- 
cupation. Charming Bruges, during the war, 

208 



AT BELGIUM'S GREAT DIVIDE 

was transformed by the Germans into a sub- 
marine base and U-boats were built, repaired 
and supplied here. Through two canals, one to 
Ostend and the other to Zeebrugge the U-boats 
found their course to the open sea. And Bruges 
is like an exquisite picture, with its quaint 
houses dating from the seventeenth century; an 
artist's dream. Ghent is set in the heart of the 
greatest flower-growing region on the continent ; 
Ghent with its magnificent churches, its ancient 
castle of the Counts of Flanders in the center 
of the city and its ' ' belf roi ' ' or city belfry with 
the silver chimes that ring out the hours. These 
belfries are one of the joys of touring Belgium. 
Every city has one, an architectural gem, and 
their bells are wonderfully musical. They 
symbolize the freedom of the people. Ostende, 
the Atlantic City of Belgium, shows the effect 
of shelling from the warships, its famous prom- 
enade along the beach now lined with ruins of 
hotels and ravages of war. The wreck of the 
English boat, the " Vindictive," lays there in 
the harbor. 

I was fortunate in being one of a party of 
three, under the personal guidance of Maj. J. L. 

209 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



J. Clinckenmaille of the Belgian Third In- 
fantry, head of the trip section of the Office 
Central d 'Information of the Belgium minis- 
try of economic affairs, in this tour of the front. 
The other two members of the party were an 
English novelist and his wife. Major Clincken- 
maille is a native of Ypres and saw seven years 
of active service there and at Ostende before 
the war. His left arm is paralyzed and he 
bears the scars of eighteen shrapnel wounds 
from the morning of April 25, 1915, when he 
led his company in the attack at Steenstraat, 
and his lieutenant was killed at his side. This 
was the first gas attack of the Germans and the 
Belgians had no gas masks, only handkerchiefs 
to ward off the fumes. He has the Order of 
King Leopold with palms, the Order of Con- 
ronne with palms and the Croix de Guerre 
with two palms, and other decorations that he 
was too modest to talk about. The major was 
with President Wilson and his party when 
they toured Belgium with Marshal Foch. So he 
could explain to me every phase of the historic 
battleground. 

We left Brussels at 8 o'clock Monday morn- 
210 



AT BELGIUM'S GREAT DIVIDE 

ing and in a few hours were in Ghent, or Gand, 
as it is called in Belgium. For miles before 
reaching the city and around the suburb of 
Gentbruegge, we passed through a region of 
nurseries, gardens of azaleas. A half million 
dollars worth of live plants, bulbs and seeds 
are exported to the United States and England 
annually from this Ghent district. This is also 
a large cotton spinning region. Cotton is im- 
ported here from the United States, and their 
ambition is for a greater Ghent port to make 
it the " spot cotton " market of central Europe. 
Flax is grown in large quantities in this region. 
We passed many flax fields and saw thousands 
of bundles of it along the banks of the Lys river, 
where it is dipped in the process from the 
grower to the spinner. There are many linen 
and cotton mills in this vicinity. Ghent is near- 
er by rail to the big spinning centers of central 
Europe and hopes to establish herself as the 
principal cotton distributing point. This is also 
a great .tobacco growing region — we passed 
many tobacco fields. 

The hotel de ville in Ghent, the city hall, is 
a marvel of architecture with wonderful statu- 

211 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



ary set into the niches of its outer walls. In 
these European cities the show place is always 
the city hall; it is invariably the architectural 
triumph of the city and contains art treasures 
of great value. Imagine taking visitors to our 
city halls in America to show them off ! There 
is an idea for some of our city fathers. Why 
shouldn't the city or town hall be the center of 
beauty, since it reflects the city itself? 

A blown-up bridge greeted us near Courtrai 
where back in the fourteenth century was fought 
the Battle of the Golden Spurs. We stopped 
in the battered town of Menin for lunch. Menin 
is just on the border of France and across the 
river is Halluin. We crossed the bridge, but 
could not enter the town as the English novelist 
had no French passport. In Menin the lunch- 
eon menu was soup, made from tobacco leaves 
and horse meat. Food is not very plentiful yet 
in this part of the country. But you don't mind 
— as the little English ' ' Fany ' ' girl at the 
wheel of the car put it, ' ' you just carry on. ' ' 

And then we came to Ypres. They say it 
" Eeper," but the English Tommy persists in 
calling it " Wipers," and as hundreds and hun- 

212 



AT BELGIUM'S GREAT DIVIDE 

dreds of thousands of his fellows gave up their 
lives in the three great battles of Ypres in 1914, 
in 1915 and 1916, he has a right, surely, to his 
pronunciation. For this is England's greatest 
shrine. The flower of the British army fell here 
during the first year of the war. 

Someone asked the major to show us his 
home in Ypres and his reply was " I don't be- 
lieve I can find it. ' ' But after traversing many 
streets he located just a part of two walls — all 
that was left. He showed us the remains of 
the convent he had been sent to at the age of 
six. On the cobbled streets he picked up pieces 
of shrapnel for our souvenirs. 

In the part of the city where the new houses 
are being erected we were introduced to the 
chef de section of the King Albert fund, Victor 
Callens, who turned out to have been sergeant 
major under Major Clinckenmaille when he was 
lieutenant and there was a hearty reunion. 
''You can make faces at him now," said the 
English novelist. " Oh, he was a fine lieuten- 
ant, ' ' said M. Callens, in quick defense, and the 
major blushed at the compliment. 

M. Callens showed us through his home, one 
213 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



of the new cottages which has eight rooms and 
rents for twelve francs a month. And we met 
his wife and six children. They had returned 
to Ypres shortly after the armistice and M. 
Callens is director of all the building. He has 
now demands for 300 houses of four, five and 
six rooms. The plan is to provide each family 
with a separate home. The four-room houses 
rent for six francs a month, which is less than 
one dollar and he told me if people were unable 
to pay that they were charged one franc a 
month. There are five bakers and three butch- 
ers among the returned people. These are 
especially encouraged to come back in order to 
relieve the food situation. 

One school with an attendance of 123 children 
has been opened under the direction of the Abbe 
de Lahr. The Abbe de Neuville has established 
a trades school for war orphans which will ac- 
commodate three hundred children, and now 
has an attendance of 115. The city ruins, in- 
cluding the town hall, are to be left as they are, 
but the homes are to be rebuilt as soon as the 
people get their war indemnity. So Ypres is 
trying to pull herself out of the debris of four 

214 



AT BELGIUM'S GREAT DIVIDE 

years of bombardment. The burgomaster came 
back in February and the two thousand people 
who have returned are trying to take up the 
broken threads of life for the new start. 

You will be specially interested in this King 
Albert fund for 700,000 francs of it came in do- 
nations from Americans I was told. It was 
created by royal decree in 1916 to take care of 
the people returning to the destroyed sections 
of the country, to provide them with temporary 
habitations. The Belgian government recently 
allowed forty million francs to the fund, though 
a hundred millions was asked for. Twelve thou- 
sand of these wooden huts have been erected, 
and as each hut cares for five people, 60,000 
returned refugees will thus be provided for. 
But as 300,000 people were homeless in Belgium 
at the time of the armistice it is still a problem. 
It is estimated that 25,000,000 francs are re- 
quired to clean up the ground and give proper 
homes to the returning people. The Belgium 
office for the devastated regions is in charge of 
the work. In the transportation of materials 
they often use the narrow gauge ammunition 
railroads abandoned by the Germans. There 

215 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



is a repatriation fund from which adults are 
allowed daily one franc, fifty centimes, and one 
franc for each child, by the government. Also 
an extra franc, fifty, is allowed for the return 
of farmers, bakers and butchers. This office 
looks after sanitary conditions, sewers and 
canals. 

Indemnity paid to refugees forced to quit 
their homes and who do not seek to return 
will be progressively repressed, so there is 
every inducement to come back. 

On the road out of Ypres we went through 
Zandberg Wood called the Cemetery of Tanks. 
The first attack of the tanks here by the English 
was not a success and these huge implements 
of war stand where they were left, many sunk 
deep in the mud. We had all descended from 
the auto here and were crossing the shell- 
ploughed field to one of the large tanks. Half- 
way, I turned back to put my coat in the car, for 
it had become intensely warm. In starting to 
rejoin the group I noticed the major in the fore- 
ground. 

" Just go on," I called. 

" Thought I'd better wait — you might be 
frightened," was his jocular reply. 

216 



AT BELGIUM'S GREAT DIVIDE 

" Of the tanks? " I laughed. 

" No, of this," he said, pointing to a shell 
hole over which he stood. I was picking my 
way carefully over ground tangled with barbed 
wire, abandoned shells, torpedoes and such. 

" Oh ! " When I looked in the shell hole I 
saw — just one leg still encased in a riding 
boot, the blow-up remains of a German. His 
leather shell pouch was still there. And it is 
almost a year since the war. Beyond the tank 
a group of German prisoners were at work. 
Several came along carrying a stretcher on 
which was a large, lumpy sack. The major 
spoke to one of them. " This war was bad 
business," was what the German said. The 
peace treaty provides that Germany must send 
civilian workmen to clear up the devastated 
regions but as that has not been done German 
soldiers are kept for the work, and groups of 
them are seen in every town and all along the 
roads. 

We traversed a sector of Belgium outworks 
to Oostvleteren from where we crossed for the 
first time the flooded district now grown with 
high weeds. From the locks at Nieuport on 

217 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



Nov. 2, 1914, this entire district was inun- 
dated by a system prepared by order of the 
Belgian G. H. Q. and maintained during the 
whole war, keeping the Germans beyond the 
Yser. 

And then on to Furnes, the seat of the Bel- 
gian G. H. Q. during the Yser battle. In Furnes, 
a city of considerable size, we went through the 
shattered courthouse on what had once been a 
picturesque public square. In the wrecked 
court room were beautiful old carved chairs 
and benches, the seats of the magistrate and 
members of the bar. On the floor lay smashed 
stone carvings from the once handsome exterior 
decorations. 

It was dusk when we reached La Panne, where 
we stayed for the night. It is a quaint village 
on the windswept shore of the North Sea and 
during the war was the residence of the king 
and queen. Here at La Panne is the hospital 
for the severely wounded, where the queen 
helped as a nurse during the strenuous war 
days. We had dinner at the Hotel Terlinck, 
famed for its delicious sole, which goes from the 
sea. direct to the kitchen. From its simple, red- 

218 



AT BELGIUM'S GREAT DIVIDE 

table-clothed, dining room in the morning we 
watched the people going down the sands to 
the fishing smacks to purchase fish for the 
markets. 

It was early and raining next morning when 
we started for Dixmude, stopping at Adin- 
kerke to walk reverently through a large Bel- 
gian military cemetery most beautifully kept. 
Between Wulveringhem and Alveringhem of 
the Belgian outworks, we had pointed out to 
us the schools of Vinckem, established by the 
queen for the education of children of missing 
or evacuated civilians. There is also a won- 
derful field hospital at Vinckem. Through 
quiet little Belgian villages, then past more 
marsh and into the region of Belgian trenches 
where rusty barbed wire entanglements were 
still in a web across open fields. 

At Dixmude you realize the war. Today it 
is a picture of utter desolation and destruction. 
This was the theater of the heroic resistance of 
the Belgian troops and the marine fusileers of 
Admiral Ronarch. East of the Yser, near the 
bridge, is the remains of the corn mill that was 
the strong German defensive redoubt. 

219 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



Climbing to the top of a little knoll on the 
Belgian side of the Yser to get a better view 
of the sweep of the river, I found myself in 
front of a dugout of concrete. Every inch of 
ground on both sides of the stream had been 
shell-gashed again and again. Only that ninety 
feet of water constituted No Man's Land, for 
on the opposite shore I went into a German 
dugout. Evidently only the shaky wooden 
bridge on which we crossed has been added to 
the landscape since the echo of the last gun 
disappeared into silence. 

Down the stream they point out to you the 
" Boy an de la Mort,' r the ''Communication 
Trench of Death." This trench was under 
German enfilading fire notwithstanding the de- 
fensive works and here the brave Belgian troops 
suffered heavy losses. Here numerous raids 
were executed by both sides. The trench has 
had to be filled up for the reconstruction of the 
river banks. The rippling Yser will always 
stand for much in the great war for it marks 
the border of the German occupation in Bel- 
gium. Beyond its troubled banks I was told no 
German set foot in four years. Though its 

220 



AT BELGIUM'S GREAT DIVIDE 

waters ran red with blood many times in those 
long years, it was the unattainable land, the 
" On ne passe pas " of Belgium. 

Down the road from the bridge a few crumb- 
ling walls are all that is left of the town of Dix- 
mude, that boasted 6,000 inhabitants and was 
famous for its butter. 

Here the people returning are building up 
homes from the stones of the dugouts that 
marred their streets. " When the French 
Colonials came to our aid here," said the major, 
reminiscently, "we had just seven rounds of 
ammunition left." 

The next stop was Pervyse and the first thing 
that greeted the eye on entering the town was 
the grave of a Belgian soldier. Near the ruins 
of a Pervyse church in a few foot plot are 
buried 115 German soldiers, so the cross above 
it states. It was on Oct. 25, 1914, that the Bel- 
gians drove the Germans back beyond Pervyse 
and established the Belgian line from Dixmude 
to Nieuport which was never again crossed by 
the enemy. On Oct. 27 the French Algerian 
troops came to the aid of the Belgians and to- 
gether they drove the Germans back to Rams- 

221 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



cappelle. At Pervyse we entered what was 
left of the stone cottage occupied all during the 
war by two women, one a Belgian baroness and 
the other an Englishwoman, who did so much in 
caring for and nursing wounded soldiers. The 
peasants now living in the cottage took us into 
the cave cellar beyond the kitchen, where these 
two courageous women lived through days and 
nights of bombardment and showed us their 
primitive cooking utensils. They have, I un- 
derstand, written most interestingly of their ex- 
periences in a book entitled tl Two Women of 
Pervyse." The major told an incident in re- 
gard to them. He was coming clown yonder 
camouflaged road one dark night with a com- 
pany of his men when a light loomed up ahead. 
He was indignant for it would bring, he knew, 
aerial bombs down on his men in a few mo- 
ments, so he dashed up to learn the cause of 
the light. He found the two women working- 
over their motor car which had become stalled 
in the road. Pervyse was a village of 1500 
people of whom 150 are now back and others 
will return as soon as homes can be provided. 
Beyond Pervyse, the road lay through the 
222 



AT BELGIUM'S GREAT DIVIDE 

Belgian lines; to the right were the first lines 
and to the left the second lines. The major 
explained the composition of the lines. " First 
there are the listening posts of four or six men 
each," he said, " then the advance posts of one 
or two platoons of forty men each; then the 
first line of infantry with possibly field artil- 
lery back of it ; then the second line of infantry, 
then the field artillery, and then the heavy 
artillery; with special batteries stationed 
against airplanes." Dugouts, abris or shelters 
and barbed wire entanglements punctuated the 
scene as far as the eye could reach. 

' ' Over there is the Dammit farm, ' ' said the 
major, pointing to a battered farmhouse across 
the fields. 

" Was that the owner's name? " I asked. 

' ' No, that is what we called it — we never 
got into that farmhouse that the Germans didn't 
start to shell it. Over there is Ramscappelle — 
we called it Eamshrapnel because we got so 
much shrapnel around here." The town of 
Ramscappelle has little left. The trenches all 
around it saw desperate fighting. Every little 
while, along the way, we would pass a deserted 

223 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



dressing station, where the wounded had been 
taken, until they could be conveyed back to 
hospitals behind the lines. 

Then into Nieuport, the key of the inunda- 
tion system which did so much to save Belgium. 
The sluices of the five bridges were under con- 
stant fire which destroyed them completely in 
1918. Of special interest in Nieuport were the 
underground passages which connect the city of 
Nieuport with Nieuport Baths, the seaside re- 
sort a mile and a half away and visible against 
the horizon. This was the left extremity of the 
western front. It was defended in October, 
1914, by the Belgians, later successively by 
French and British troops and again in 1917 by 
the Belgians. I entered one of these under- 
ground passages which are tunneled through to 
the coast. It was a cemented tunnel, lighted 
by small portholes to the streets and there was 
an exit at the end of each block. 

From Nieuport we motored through the de- 
stroyed village of Lombartzyde which was the 
advance post of the Belgian Second army divi- 
sion during the battle of the Yser. It was oc- 
cupied by the Germans until October, 1914. 

224 



AT BELGIUM'S GREAT DIVIDE 

All of this district was flooded. Then through 
Westende to Middelkerke which was shelled by 
English warships. Many of the Belgian towns 
in this vicinity were shelled by the Belgians 
themselves in order to dislodge the Germans. 
What agony it must have meant to turn their 
guns on their own home cities. The Germans 
held this region until October, 1918, when they 
retreated to Ghent where the Allies held the line 
until the armistice was signed in November. 

And then we came to beautiful Ostende, the 
famous seaside resort for the English as well 
as the Belgians, with its promenade along the 
picturesque beach now a mass of stately ruins. 

We lunched at Ostende in one of the beach 
hotels that had escaped severe direct shelling 
from the sea and had been restored. There 
were many people about, for several of the 
hotels are again opened. But along the pic- 
turesque stretch of sandy beach, where fashion 
and gaiety promenaded season after season, 
battered cannon still stand and grim guns point 
seaward from breastworks. In the harbor lays 
the hull of the Vindictive and trenches and shel- 
ters are before the Kursaal. 

225 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



And then on to Bruges, the beautiful, that 
saw four years of German occupation. And 
Bruges is fascinating. It is difficult to tell you 
about Bruges in a paragraph — it should have 
an entire book. The art of past centuries un- 
rolls before you as you traverse its narrow 
streets. Row after row of quaint houses, dat- 
ing from the sixteenth and seventeenth cen- 
turies; and not just old but rarely beautiful 
with such harmony of line. Every turn in the 
street is a new delight. The motor on the car 
was stalled many times when we would chorus, 
" Please stop till we get a picture." I nearly 
tumbled into the canal trying to kodak a row of 
fluted top houses as we crossed a bridge. And 
right there we almost lost the English novelist 
who leaped from the car to follow a person 
carrying an old table — his fad is antiques. 
The churches of Bruges are lovely! In one we 
were shown the magnificent Michael Angelo 
sculpture of the Virgin and the Child carved 
from a single piece of marble. In another the 
Major's knowledge of Flemish or his war 
crosses got the bent and mumbling old care- 
taker to lead us to a mysterious door which he 

226 



AT BELGIUM'S GREAT DIVIDE 

opened with a long key and to admit us to some 
holy of holies where hung pictures, old masters, 
of the most marvelous colorings — the wife of 
the English novelist was so enchanted here we 
could hardly get her away. The bells of Bruges 
are not the least of its enchantments, and the 
quaint, steepled belfry on the Grand Place 
throws its shadows across the monument of 
Breydel and De Coninck that occupies the cen- 
ter of the square. They were the leaders in the 
factions of the Battle of the Golden Spurs that 
I mentioned at Courtrai, where it was fought 
way back in 1302. Breydel was the head of the 
Butchers Corporation and De Coninck was 
head of the Drapers, the Cloth Corporation, 
and they were both citizens of Bruges. It was 
a battle of the trades organizations against the 
aristocracy, and the former were the victors. 
And it was called the Battle of the Golden Spurs 
because so many golden spurs were found later 
on the battlefield. Evidently there were indus- 
trial upheavals even then. However, Belgium 
today has no strikes. Industrial difficulties are 
handled through a joint employers' and work- 
men's council to which all questions are sub- 
mitted. 

227 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



Leaving Bruges most reluctantly — it is hard 
to visualize that from its steeped-in-art atmos- 
phere was waged the destructive U-Boat war- 
fare against English commerce — we motored 
out through its medieval gateway and on the 
highroad to Ghent. In the twilight through the 
villages we passed cottages where old women, 
young women and little girls sat in groups be- 
fore the doorways making lace, the wonderful 
cobwebby Brussels and Bruges laces. Each lo- 
cality has a lace of its own and these peasant 
women are most skillful in its making. All 
along the way it was novel even in the tiniest 
of homes to see curtains at the windows edged 
with these exquisite laces. And so back into 
Brussels we came where the streets are torn up 
in an elaborate repaving and remodeling, the 
cleanup following the German occupation. 

Brave little Belgium is making supreme ef- 
forts to come back to normal. She does not 
want charity but long time credit, help to re- 
build her industries. Northern Belgium or 
Flanders is a rich agricultural country, as I 
have shown you in passing through. Southern 
and south-eastern Belgium, the land of the Wal- 

228 



AT BELGIUM'S GREAT DIVIDE 

loons, is the mining and manufacturing region. 
They want their own industries, that were de- 
stroyed by war, rebuilt,, but above all they want 
raw material and credit to buy raw material. 

A visit to the front gives a glimpse of what 
Belgium suffered and the world must applaud 
her spirit in rebuilding homes from the stones 
of dugouts. She is raising her shoulders above 
the weight of sorrow of four long years and 
looking ahead with new courage. Her country 
is saved and she is going about starting over 
with little fuss. 

Plucky little Belgium! 



229 



Y 



CHAPTER XVII 

THROUGH A KIDNAPPED LOUVAIN FACTORY 

Brussels, Aug. 27. 
OU wouldn't believe a factory could be kid- 
napped, Avould you? 

You wouldn 't believe a factory could have an 
unwritten chapter in its annals that eclipses 
the imagination of a Conan Doyle or a Dumas ! 

And you wouldn't dream that a factory 
stripped, dismantled, its machinery dug out by 
the foundations and carted off — yes, entire 
warehouses taken, roof and all — and its of- 
fices burned, could already be coming back! 
That is why I want to tell you about this fac- 
tory of Dyle & Bacalan. 

This is a true reconstruction story about a 
big factory and the factory is in Louvain, and 
Louvain is one of the martyred cities of Bel- 
gium. Just five years before, on the very day 
I was there, Aug. 25, 1914, the Germans had 
arrogantly taken possession of the huge plant. 
They had lined up and shot to death 209 people 

230 



THROUGH A LOUVAIN FACTORY 

of the city, including twenty women and eleven 
children. Germany is being scoured today for 
the many priceless books carried off from the 
University library, before this handsome struc- 
ture with the Law Courts, the theater, the Uni- 
versity consular and commercial school, the 
Academy of Fine Arts and more than 2,000 
houses were burned by German troops. Lou- 
vain today is a moving sight. 

Now the name of Dyle & Bacalan is as well 
known in Belgium and France as that of the 
Pullman Co. is in America. They are a car 
building concern, manufacturing chiefly railroad 
cars and boilers, and have another plant in 
Bordeaux, France. Twenty-four hundred peo- 
ple are employed in the Louvain plant and I 
forget how many millions of dollars its output 
amounted to on that day in August, five years 
ago, when the Germans seized it. I have a 
vision of j^ou looking politely bored, as I did, 
when it was suggested that I go through this 
plant, but after an hour of snooping around its 
barnlike shops, I regretted there was not an 
hour more. And I confess to being devoid of all 
machinery instinct ; I don't know the philosophy 

231 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



of what makes a wheel go around. But I dis- 
covered that behind the motive power of the 
vast machines that had driven this plant, be- 
hind the facts and figures that constitute the 
life of a factory, there was that indefinable thing 
called personality which is the mainspring of 
its revival. 

I suppose a factory could go on for decades 
prospering on income and output and paying 
regular dividends, but once in every so many 
hundred years there comes a time when it needs 
something more — call it a keen initiative, a far 
vision, a deep loyalty or a soul for the works. 
The superintendent who took us through, told it 
quite simply — it had been all in the day's work 
with him. 

When the Germans took possession they 
asked him to work for them. He refused. 
Singularly enough, they did not harm him; just 
would not allow him to leave the country. So 
he hung around the plant. Now this man knew 
every machine in that vast works like Thomp- 
son, The Times pressroom foreman, knows 
every screw in the press in the big front win- 
dow, and when every little wheel sings its swan 

232 



THROUGH A LOUVAIN FACTORY 

song. When the Germans took out the big ma- 
chines and packed them for shipment to Ger- 
many he, naturally, watched to see where they 
went. He kept always on the lookout. I don't 
imagine he even had to write it down. He 
carried it in his memory, and the Germans paid 
no attention to him because I suppose they 
never thought about it and, anyway, they never 
expected to give up the factory. One day, hav- 
ing strolled into the Brussels office of the con- 
cern, he, accidentally, saw a bill of lading for 
a consignment of the machinery to Germany 
and noted where it had been sent. That slip of 
paper is now in the hands of the Belgian author- 
ities. 

So that is why Dyle & Bacalan were enabled, 
immediately after the armistice, to locate so 
many of their machines and to bring them back. 
That is why today there are five hundred peo- 
ple at work getting a new start in the big, 
barren sheds that cover acres of ground there 
in Louvain. The superintendent pointed out a 
long, one story building. The entire structure 
had' been carried off ; its side walls are of fitted 
sections and it could be taken apart. They had 

233 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



gone to Germany, located the kidnapped build- 
ing and brought it back, every piece of it, and 
set it up exactly where it had stood. ' ' We got 
back all but the roof of that building," he re- 
marked with a smile. 

In one long, lofty shed not a scrap of machin- 
ery is left. Only deep, square, holes, cut into 
the earth floor, show where even the foundations 
of the machines were dug out and carted away. 
What they did not carry away was rendered 
useless before they left. The plant was only 
able to resume on its present scale because it 
could obtain in addition 165 machines from its 
Bordeaux house. And these 165 machines are 
American machines, the superintendent added, 
as he pointed them out. The Englishman in 
the party wanted to know excitedly why they 
did not purchase machinery from England, and 
the answer was that the American machines 
were, for their purpose, stronger. 

" Is it a matter of price? " pursued the Eng- 
lishman. 

"No," was the reply, "the American ma- 
chine is stronger." They keep an engineer in 
the United States to purchase their machinery, 
I learned. 

234 



THROUGH A LOUVAIN FACTORY 

The superintendent led ns up to one machine 
recently recovered and remarked that it was 
reinstalled on the exact spot from which it had 
been taken. ' ' Now, you know, you should have 
a plate, inscribed with those facts, fastened to 
this machine, making' it a souvenir," remarked 
the Englishman. 

''We have enough of souvenirs here," said 
the Belgian smiling sadly, as his eyes swept 
the dismantled shop, ' ' plenty of souvenirs 
without such reminders, Monsieur." 

Up to the present time, 300 of the 700 ma- 
chines taken by the Germans, have been lo- 
cated and brought back. The aggregate cost 
of what was lost and destroyed will reach fif- 
teen million francs. " But it will cost four 
times that much, sixty million francs, to replace 
the machinery at the present cost," the super- 
intendent remarked. 

The concern of Dyle & Bacalan hopes to have 
its Louvain plant in full running order in five 
or six months. I asked how they expected to 
find skilled labor, since so many men were killed 
in the war and Belgium is now recruiting its 
younger men. His answer was that it would be 

235 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



difficult; it was possible they would have to 
employ women for the lighter work. The 
owners of the plant were in France at the out- 
break of the war and the Germans, on taking 
possession, claimed they were running it for 
its owners, " but we never saw any of the 
profits," he said. At the time the office was 
burned several adjoining buildings caught fire 
and were destroyed. At present the chief ac- 
tivity of the plant is repairing railroad cars and 
we saw many in the process of remodeling. 

So that is how a factory gives you a heart- 
ache. Great, silent, empty, shops, ghostly with 
memories — looted and the torch applied. But 
here and there today is a humming machine, a 
hopeful sign. Over there is a noisy carpenter 
shop. Starting up again in this empty waste 
is dreary business but they are going about it 
in a matter-of-fact way, and insist they will be 
going full blast before spring. The hero of the 
plant, you will agree, is the man who watched 
where the machines were shipped and who 
knew just where to lay his hands on them when 
the hostilities ceased. 



236 



THROUGH A LOUVAIN FACTORY 

" Where did you have to go after them? " 
was asked. 

" Well, now this one we found at Viezem 
near Dusseldorf," he said. 

I went, too, into the big steel works of the 
Providence Company at Charleroi in southeast- 
ern Belgium, a few days later, and saw the 
wanton destruction of huge cranes and ma- 
chinery in this plant. They are starting work 
again — trying to clear away the debris. I 
endeavored to get the wife of the old caretaker 
of the plant to talk, but she would reveal noth- 
ing. The Germans who had seized the factory 
had treated her and her husband well. She had 
cooked for them. They had not harmed her. 
She seemed afraid to talk. Even the English 
Fany girl couldn't draw her out. 

I want to tell you about these English Fany 
girls for they are one of the joys of my motor- 
ing in Belgium. F. A. N. Y. stands for First 
Aid Nursing Yeomanry, an organization of 
English war workers, that saw some of the fore- 
most of the women's service in the war. There 
is Mary Bushby Stubbs, such a pretty, blue- 
eyed Irish girl, whose home is in London, and 

237 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



she drove the car to Louvain. She had enlisted 
in the beginning of the war as a Red Cross 
Nursing Aid, but contracted a septic throat 
from nursing poisonous wounds — some of the 
wounded had gone for five days before they 
could reach the hospitals, she told me. For- 
bidden to nurse, she entered the Yeomanry 
motor car driving service and was sent to 
Chalons sur Marne in February, 1917. She 
drove an ambulance during the battle on the 
Chemin du Dames, was in the drive of Chalons 
and at Epernay. She has the Croix de Guerre, 
has one citation from the Chemin du Dames 
and one for the time they bombed the hospital 
at Chalons. 

' ' We lived on the rations of the French sol- 
diers and often we were hungry," she told me, 
once. " Their rations were black bread, black 
coffee, horse meat and beans." She was one of 
the motor girls chosen to run the cars that 
brought the prisoners back from Germany 
after the armistice and had many thrilling mo- 
ments. 

Then there is dashing little Monica Cousins, 
with her bobbed hair and shining black eyes, 

238 



THROUGH A LOUVAIN FACTORY 

who drove the Baby Benz the day we went 
to Dinant and on the two days ' trip to the front. 
1 ' He gets so flapped, ' ' she said, referring to 
the feverish excitement of the officer in charge 
of one trip. ' ' Flapped " is a new bit of Eng- 
lish slang that is most expressive and it means 
" gets all stirred up, you know," she told me. 
She is Miss Stubbs' teammate and wears the 
French Croix de Guerre for driving under shell 
fire. She was in the French Army F. A. N. Y. 
running a car, carrying the wounded during the 
battle of Epernay. "We carried 17,000 
wounded once in five days — never got to bed 
at all — that was in the second Battle of the 
Marne, that lasted during May, June and July 
of 1918. The wounded were often terrified," 
she said, ' ' when driving them back to the hos- 
pitals the roads would be bombed and I'd have 
to say ' now it is alright — it won't hit us ' — 
poor chaps lying there so helpless." 

One girl of their corps was badly wounded 
when a shell burst on her car and the officer in 
the seat beside her was killed. But Miss 
Cousins had escaped injury. She had also 
driven a car into Germany to bring back the 

239 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



prisoners after the armistice. They would ar- 
rive at a dreadful prison camp at night and 
would be billeted there — have to sleep there — 
she told me. They would start at dawn in the 
morning for the long trip across the border 
conveying the prisoners to French hospitals. 
That was exciting, too, she said. Miss Cousins 
comes from Yorkshire, England, and is twenty- 
four, though she looks eighteen. Her one 
brother was in the service, her oldest sister 
with the American Y in Paris and her other 
sister with the British Red Cross as a nurse 
for three years. " You certainly are a plucky 
family," I observed. 

' ' We were so lucky to get to go, ' ' was the 
way Monica put it as she pulled her jaunty cap 
over her bobbed hair and stepped on the starter. 

These are a couple of the girl drivers for 
the Central office d 'Information, a department 
created last May by Henri Jaspar, minister of 
economic affairs of Belgium, in charge of the 
economic and industrial problems of the recon- 
struction of Belgium, to make them known 
to the United States. Capt. D. L. Blount of 
St. Louis, but who has lived abroad many years, 

240 



THROUGH A LOUVAIN FACTORY 

is director general of the bureau. Burr Price, 
formerly with the New York Herald as war 
and peace correspondent, is director of its press 
section and Major Prins has charge of the docu- 
mentation. Through them I was enabled to 
get information concerning the ' ' carrying on ' ' 
of the various Belgian industries and how they 
are recovering from the lethargy of the last 
four years. The big manufacturing district of 
the southeastern Belgium is trying heroically 
to pull itself out from under the wreckage of 
the invasion and occupation. It is not charity 
but long time credit Belgium asks, credit to 
buy raw materials with which to start her fac- 
tories anew. 



241 



CHAPTER XVIII 

ANTWERP AND ITS FORT WAELHEM 

Brussels, Aug. 28. 

DOZENS of empty American flour sacks — 
from Kansas City and Faribault, Minn., 
to Seattle ! And they occupy a front position on 
a rack in The Steen. Now The Steen is a 
cupola-towered castle on the banks of the 
Scheldt River at Antwerp, a picturesque old 
pile, dating back to the Eighth century when 
it was a fortress, and later the seat of the Span- 
ish Inquisition. Through its shivery, under- 
ground dungeons I went with a candle-bearing 
group. Nothing in the way of horrible torture 
chambers had been omitted from this cheerful 
place. From 1540 to 1703 Spain, you remem- 
ber, ruled Belgium. It is probable no other 
building of its size has seen so much human 
suffering as The Steen, and it has now been 
converted into a museum of antiquities to illus- 
trate, I suppose, how humanity has progressed 
since. 

242 



ANTWERP AND ITS FORT WAELHEM 

But about the flour sacks! I am coming to 
those — I stumbled on them by accident. They 
were marked America's gift to the Belgians a 
year ago when they were bulging with good old 
American wheat flour, and today a grateful 
nation keeps them as treasured souvenirs in 
her greatest museum — just plain, coarse cot- 
ton, flour sacks, printed with mill names from 
the Mississippi to the Pacific, in glaring red 
and blue letters. They would look out of place 
next to a four-cornered post against which six- 
teen Belgians had been stood up and shot, and 
near the first German flag taken by the Bel- 
gians, diagonally across from a Big Bertha 
shell, and to the right of the glass case that 
holds the actual order for Edith Cavell's execu- 
tion — they really would look out of place if 
high up on the wall to the left were not several 
huge posters showing Uncle Sam in the act of 
telling the Hun what he thinks of him. Hun- 
dreds of years from now that rack of empty 
flour sacks will remind coming generations of 
a generosity from across the seas to Belgium 
in her hour of need. What the American Com- 
mission for Belgian Relief did to succor starv- 

243 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



ing Belgium fills weighty official records. It 
expended hundreds of millions of dollars in re- 
lief work during the war and saved the Belgian 
children who were provided with special foods. 
And the people are indeed grateful. 

The first place I was taken in Belgium was 
Antwerp. The Belgian Ministry of Economics 
is boosting Antwerp as a world port and it is 
not the fault of its information department if 
Antwerp does not far outdistance Rotterdam 
and take its place as one of the foremost ports 
of Europe. It is rapidly regaining its shipping 
industry destroyed by the war and is already 
competing with Liverpool and Hamburg. Its 
natural position at the mouth of the Scheldt 
gives it great advantages. Emerging from four 
years of German occupation with vim and 
energy, Antwerp will, if Belgium obtains the 
freedom of the Scheldt (both banks of which 
now belong to Holland), be in a position to 
figure largely in world shipping. 

Antwerp or Anvers as they call it — and you 
pronounce the " s " if speaking to a Belgian, 
but you don't if speaking to a Frenchman — is 
one of the quaintest of cities. You will be 

244 



ANTWERP AND ITS FORT WAELHEM 

interested in how it got its name. Antwerp in 
Flemish means literally ' ' Hand throw. ' ' Once, 
so the tale runs, there was a powerful giant 
who required much gold as toll for every ship 
that entered the harbor. If the captain of a 
ship refused to pay this tribute he would cut 
off his hands. Now the Duke of Balbo, deter- 
mining to put an end to the toll graft, went to 
plead with the giant one day ; the latter had to 
leave him to intercept a ship entering the har- 
bor. The giant boarded the ship and was just 
reaching out his hand to take the captain 's gold 
when Balbo, who had rowed out unobserved and 
boarded the ship from the farther side, sprang 
across the deck and with his sword cut off the 
hand of the giant as it received the gold, and 
threw it into the sea. I was just as skeptical 
as you are about this story but the guide in the 
hotel de ville, who showed us the metal picture 
of the scene, was in solemn earnest as he related 
it, and there, on the open square in front of the 
city hall, in the form of a beautiful fountain, is 
the statue of the daring Balbo in the act of 
flourishing the cruel giant's hand as he throws 
it into the sea. In the same room of the city hall 

245 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



is a marvelous painting. In the foreground a 
page is seated on steps and the eyes of this page 
follow you and his entire figure seems to turn 
toward you no matter where you go in the 
room. It is an artist 's trick but in this painting- 
is uncanny. 

There is another Antwerp story you must 
hear if you would know the traditions of this 
ancient city. It is the career of one, Quentin 
Matsys, and it is told in a wall of marvelous 
paintings in one of the corridors of the city 
hall. Matsys was a blacksmith. He fell in love 
with the daughter of a renowned artist, but the 
father refused to consent to the marriage of his 
daughter with anyone but a great painter. So 
Matsys forsook his forge and went to Italy to 
study art. After several years he returned to 
Antwerp and going to the studio of the father 
of his sweetheart to plead his suit, found the 
father away. On an easel stood a partly fin- 
ished picture of a woman. Matsys seized a 
brush and painted a fly on the slipper of the 
figure on the canvas. When the father re- 
turned he thought it was a live fly and in 
attempting to brush it from the slipper, spoiled 

246 



ANTWERP AND ITS FORT WAELHEM 

his picture. Then he exclaimed that whoever 
painted that fly was a great artist and could 
wed his daughter. Of course you can guess the 
sequel to the story and how they lived happily 
ever after. The guide told this with great gusto 
and I must admit almost had me convinced, but 
the wife of the English novelist wanted to see 
the picture of the fly. Anyway, there is some 
fine iron grillwork on a pedestal in the public 
square that bears Matsys' name and shows how 
he combined his forge with his art. 

This hotel de ville in Antwerp is a most inter- 
esting place. We went into the big, council 
chamber where the burgomaster and city 
fathers meet. It has magnificent paintings on 
the walls. " That picture was painted before 
3 r our country was discovered," remarked the 
Belgian officer. ' * But we Ve been moving 
swiftly ever since," I retorted, to the " Fany " 
girl's delight. 

Into the marriage room we went. All wed- 
dings in Belgium must have the civil ceremony. 
There are the chairs for the bride and groom 
directly in front of the magistrate's desk, the 
chairs for the witnesses at one side and the 

247 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



chairs for the parents on the other. The re- 
mainder of the wedding party is seated farther 
back. On the walls are paintings of wedding 
scenes beginning with that of the ancient 
Druids, then that of the early Eomans, next 
the early Spanish ceremony and on down to the 
present time. In the marvelous cathedral of 
Antwerp we saw the statue de la Vierge with 
its priceless collection of diamonds and precious 
stones. The entire dress and elaborate head- 
dress are made of jewels. 

It was while in the museum at Antwerp that 
a one-armed soldier spoke to the Belgian officer 
conducting our party and he turned delightedly 
to grasp the boy's hand. " He was in my regi- 
ment," the officer said. The soldier told us he 
had been taken prisoner at Vilvorde, a village 
we had passed through between Brussels and 
Marines, and had been held there 23 days by 
the Germans when he managed to escape, re- 
joining the Belgian army. " How did the Ger- 
mans treat you? " I asked him. 

" Nothing to eat but a piece of black bread 
and black coffee in the morning; some thin soup 
at noon and in the evening black bread and 

248 




Capt. Colson, commandant of Fort Waelhem. At his home at Contich, Belgium. 




Pine stake in center of picture marks spot where Nurse Edith Cavell was shot. 

This is on the grounds of the Belgian shooting range in Brussels. 

Targets of the range may be seen in the background. 



ANTWERP AND ITS FORT WAELHEM 

black coffee again," was his reply. 

Beyond Malines with its handsome cathedral 
we stopped at Fort Waelhem, one of the fore- 
most defenses of Antwerp and one of the many 
forts that protect the city. Captain Colson, the 
new commandant of the fort, showed us about, 
after we had a few breathless moments crossing 
the drawbridge over the moat. This bridge, 
which was almost destroyed by the fierce attack 
to which the fort was subjected, had a few 
planks and pieces of sheet iron for flooring and 
piloting the heavy auto over it was a hazardous 
proceeding, but the Fany girl was equal to it 
and we rolled under the grim entrance and out 
into a big courtyard that had echoed to some 
of the heaviest bombardments of the war. Com- 
mandant DeWitt, the Belgian captain in charge 
of the fort in those thrilling days, only sur- 
rendered after four weeks of desperate fighting 
and he was severely wounded. He was given 
back his sword by the German commander in 
recognition of his brilliant defense, one of the 
rare instances of this kind. The Germans had 
surrounded the fort but the heroic commandant 
held out with his 1,500 men as long as possible. 

249 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



Captain DeWitt was promoted to the rank of 
major in the Belgian army for his defense at 
Waelhem. This big fort is underground and it 
has novel cupolas, big circular metal disks that 
crown various knolls and in which the guns are 
placed. One of these cupolas could be raised 
and lowered, while others moved only in a circle 
in order to aim the guns. It was interesting 
to hear from the military men how the churches 
in two villages on either side of the fort fur- 
nished the enemy their true aim on the fort 
itself. The high steeples of the churches pro- 
vided, unwittingly, the line that helped the 
enemy sight their guns directly at the fort and 
do such destructive work. 

Commandant Colson invited our party to 
stop at his home in the nearby village of 
Contich, where we enjoyed superb Belgian 
hospitality. It is a large beautiful old resi- 
dence, the home of prominent Belgians who had 
suffered much during the war, and had been 
taken over only a few weeks before by the com- 
mandant and his charming wife. The garden 
with its many new varieties of dahlias was an 
attractive place and one of my most enjoyable 

250 



ABOUT BRUSSELS 



hours in Belgium was spent in this home with 
its lofty, spacious rooms that still retain speci- 
mens of the quaint lavish furnishings of before- 
the-war splendor. 

About Brussels 

We reached Brussels at 9:30 that night 
motoring through Malines, the home of Cardi- 
nal Mercier. The next day in Brussels we were 
taken out to see the place where Edith Cavell, 
the noble British nurse, was shot by official 
German decree. Cardinal Mercier, you re- 
member, had tried among the many to intercede 
for her. The execution took place at the Bel- 
gian shooting range on the outskirts of the city, 
a large tract of ground where the Belgian sol- 
diers were assembled for target practice before 
the war and it was used in recruiting. The 
wide, high-windowed building, set a couple of 
hundred feet from the street, appears like any 
ordinary American office building at first glance. 
On entering it we were conducted down a stair- 
way, through several locker-filled corridors and 
out on to a rear, covered porch. There, not more 
than fifteen feet from the porch, is a three foot 

251 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



pine stake marking the spot where the martyred 
nurse, blindfolded, was shot. On this porch 
twelve German soldiers were lined up with rifres 
for the deed. It is common belief, even in Eng- 
land, that Nurse Cavell was killed in some dark 
cell, but the truth is that she was shot here in 
the open air. That morning when we stood 
there reverently, with the sunshine throwing 
shadows over the grass, it was hard to realize 
the tragedy for which that simple pine stake 
stood. Miss Cavell 's nursing home was in 
Brussels. She was one of forty-one people shot 
at that time by the Germans. Down the wind- 
ing path of the big shooting range with its 
variety of targets and through a pretty stretch 
of woods and we came to the cemetery where 
were interred the remains of the forty-one 
martyred people. All the graves have since 
been removed, that of Nurse Cavell to England. 
The young Belgian soldier from the range told 
me many Americans came to visit her grave. 
A whole world now honors Nurse Cavell for 
her noble sacrifice for the Belgians. 

Brussels as a city is fascinating. Its queer, 
narrow, streets wind around, up steep hills and 

252 



ABOUT BRUSSELS 



cut across in the most illogical fashion, only 
to burst out every few blocks into beautiful big 
squares. Of these the gem is the Grand Place, 
circled by the magnificent Seventeenth century 
corporation houses. Here is the house of the 
Painters, where Victor Hugo lived, and the 
House of the Tailors and one for every trade, 
for in the early days trade guilds were im- 
portant in the municipal life. Facing this 
Grand Place is, too, the Brussels city hall, a 
high spired structure of pure Gothic style that 
dates back to 1402. The facades or fronts of 
the buildings facing on this square can never 
be changed; as it has been for three hundred 
years it must remain, though the interiors of 
the buildings may be reconstructed. The cen- 
ter of the Grand Place is the flower market and 
the bird market, and here I spent part of an 
interesting Sunday morning. The flower stalls 
with their Belgian flower sellers are attractive 
but the bird market is the novelty. Here you 
see birds of every kind from the plump, chipper, 
little canary to the glum, grey parrot. But the 
principal business is in carrier pigeons. Knots 
of men were gathered here in eager consulta- 

253 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



tion over pigeons, examining their wings and 
beaks with canny understanding. 

The remainder of that Sunday morning I 
spent at the Brussels rag market, known as the 
" Maronne." Now you cannot fancy having a 
good time at a rag market any more than I 
could, but if you go to Brussels, don't miss it. 
The rag market is an institution of Brussels 
whose origin is lost in the shadows of the past. 
Here every day on a huge open square in the 
heart of the slums of the city people come to 
sell everything under the sun. It must be the 
original White Elephant sale and is on a huge 
scale. Everything from shoes to antique clocks 
is offered to you. One stand had nothing but 
old rusty keys, keys large and small. Another 
had only small pieces of leather. These, I was 
told, people buy and use to sole their shoes. 
Nothing in Brussels evidently is allowed to go 
to waste. China, glassware, old metals, bed 
springs and auto lamps were there, with one 
whole section devoted to the trade of bicycles. 
Here, too, is where the lover of antiques comes 
and I saw a gorgeous ebony dining table stand- 
ing on the flagstones of the square awaiting a 
purchaser. 

254 



ABOUT BRUSSELS 



But Brussels has no slums as we know the 
word. Its poorer districts are remarkably well 
kept and I wonder if this tendency to let noth- 
ing go to waste has not something to do with it. 
I was taken through a block of model tenement 
houses built by the city and rented at a nominal 
sum. They contain cozy, comfortable four and 
six room apartments. Many of the balconies 
were overrun with vines and had pretty flower 
boxes. 

This municipal care for the good of the peo- 
ple is one of the strongest, most satisfying notes 
in Belgium. The people themselves are most 
engaging. They are always so frankly glad to 
help a foreigner, especially an American. No 
one is too busy to give you directions. They go 
out of their way to do it with such evident 
pleasure. And, of course, Brussels is the para- 
dise of the woman who loves lace — and what 
woman does not? Lace stores with exquisite 
cobwebby Brussels and Flanders lace confront 
you on every turn up the hilly streets and dodg- 
ing them is the most difficult task of the woman 
making her first trip to Belgium. 



255 



CHAPTER XIX 

IN MARTYRED DINANT AND CHARLEROI 

Translation of the Letter of Mile Degraa. 

Dinant, Aug. 26, 1919. 
8 Quai de Meuse. 
Mademoiselle : 

Faithful to the promise I made you I will give you 
the details concerning little Bernadette Poncelet. 
Her father, Mr. Victor Poncelet, the son of a lawyer 
of our city, had married the daughter of the Notary 
Laurent of Dinant. Victor Poncelet had founded a 
dozen years ago a copper factory where was manu- 
factured chiefly novelties known as Dinanderies. On 
Aug. 23, 1914, the Bodies came to his home. He 
was in the vestibule of his house with his wife and his 
seven children, of whom the eldest was 10^ years 
old and the youngest, little Bernadette, a year and a 
half old. The little one you photographed was in the 
arms of her poor father. Seeing that they were going 
to shoot the father, the wife and children knelt down 
and begged for mercy. Mr. Poncelet said to the offi- 
cer : "You are not going to shoot a father of seven 
children ! ' ' The officer put the little one in the arms 
of the mother, then commanded the soldier accom- 
panying him to fire. The soldier refused to shoot Mr. 
Poncelet. Then the officer drew his own revolver and 
shot poor Victor Poncelet in the presence of his wife 
and seven little children. 

256 



IN MARTYEED DINANT AND CHARLEROI 

Mme Poncelet and her children were made pris- 
oners and three days after, on returning to their 
house, the poor family found, in the vestibule, the 
body of the unfortunate father, which they buried in 
the garden. This was one of the saddest scenes of 
the massacres of our city. Therefore, little Berna- 
dette was chosen from among the orphans who were 
to present flowers to our Queen. 

I regret I was so occupied and unable to give you 
other details of the cruelty of our enemies. Our good 
friends, the Americans, should know everything. 
Nothing should be neglected to acquaint them with all 
the evil the Bodies did to our homes. 

You will be truly kind if you will send two photos 
of the child, one for her mother and the other I will 
treasure as a souvenir of that beautiful and sad day. 
If I can be of service to you for further information, 
you can address me. There are still so many other 
interesting cases. 

Receive, Mademoiselle, the very deep homage of a 
Belgian who feels a great sympathy for the great and 
noble American nation to which we owe all material 
and moral life. 

(Signed) M. Degraa. 

Paris, Aug. 29. 

ON returning from Brussels the above let- 
ter awaited me. It is from the aunt of 
the little girl who had presented flowers to 
Belgium's Queen at the Dinant memorial on 

257 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



the fifth anniversary of its massacre, little 
Bernadette, whom I found sitting on the run- 
ning board of the Belgian Crown Prince's car 
sobbing bitterly for her Daddy, who would 
never come back. Not even the tender words 
of the Queen had consoled her. It is a ' ' close 
up " on that tragedy which came to me most 
unexpectedly as I stood in that throng. 

That last Saturday in Belgium had been a 
full day. I talked with people who lived 
through the terror of the massacres, the little, 
old, woman who had fled to the mountains, sub- 
sisted for five days on raw vegetables — carrots 
— was found by German soldiers, brought back 
and imprisoned; twelve of her husband's peo- 
ple had been shot. I attended the pontifical 
mass on the public square of Martyred Dinant 
and heard the ringing words of Cardinal Mer- 
cier, the fearless old priest who dared defy the 
Prussian high command. I was in the front 
line of the cheering multitude that acclaimed 
Belgium's devoted King Albert and Queen 
Elizabeth when they, with the royal children, 
passed through the Boy-Scout-bordered lane 
from the great outdoor sanctuary, just to the 

258 



IN MARTYRED DINANT AND CHARLEROI 

left of the portals of the ruined church. I 
visited a wrecked steel works in Charleroi. 
Standing in the rose garden of the Baroness 
de Cartier de Marchienne, whose son, Baron de 
Cartier de Marchienne, is our Belgian Ambas- 
sador in Washington, I listened to her relate 
what it meant to have troops of German sol- 
diers forced-upon-you guests in this ivy-vined 
old chateau de Marchienne. And motoring 
back by the field of Waterloo, the British lion, 
guarding the historic battleground, wagged his 
tail at me. Quite a full day, you will agree, 
even for a post-war correspondent. 

Then there was the incident of the little 
Bernadette and how my made-in-America 
kodak proved the " laissez-passer " to the 
hearts of these good people. 

Two automobiles conveyed our party and at 
seven that morning climbed the last Brussels 
hill and dashed out on the high road, making 
a speedy run to Namur — Namur with its high- 
up fort that played such a prominent part in 
the war. But my most vivid recollection of 
Namur will always be the beautiful, tree-lined, 
woodsy road that curled down into the city 

259 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



from the heights above. In Namur it was mar- 
ket day and the quiet animated scenes of the 
market place were different from the Namur I 
had pictured during war times. 

In the other car was a movie actress with 
temperament and a fussy manager, bent on 
making a propaganda film, and they decided to 
stop at Namur for breakfast. Convincing the 
Belgian officer conducting the party that it was 
imperative that I get to Dinant quickly or I 
would miss the ceremony, our car was per- 
mitted to go ahead. Stopped at the entrance to 
the city we discovered we should have had a 
' ' coup feu ' ' or ticket, without which the car 
had to^ be parked there and we could not get 
through the guard lines. The Belgian conduct- 
ing officer was with the other car at Namur and 
the movie actress had ordered eggs for break- 
fast. The prospects for being among those 
present at the service were very poor at that 
particular moment you will admit. 

1 1 Dinant is perfectly sweet ' ' the English 
Fany girl had said to me as we came along. 
And nothing else quite so well describes it. 
Dinant, and must pronounce it "Dee-no" if 

260 



IN MARTYRED DINANT AND CHARLEROI 

you would have anyone understand the place 
you mean, is a trusting little city, snuggling 
close against high rocky cliffs, with the softly 
sighing Meuse rippling between its principal 
streets. Clustering at the base of the fort- 
crowned, rocky, promontory it looks like a 
fancy stage setting, like a bit of the brain land- 
scape of an artist. Dinant was formerly a 
favorite tourist resort of Belgium and today it 
holds the most harrowing memories of the Ger- 
man invasion. Six hundred and forty-two per- 
sons were brutally shot at Dinant in August, 
1914, by the hordes of William II. ; two-thirds 
of the town, almost 1,200 houses, were burned 
to the ground; all public buildings, the Palais 
cle Justice excepted, all factories and all the 
farms and chateaux situated on the heights are 
now in ruins. 

Crossing the temporary bridge that spans 
the Meuse you blink your eyes at the picture. 
On the summit of a sheer wall of rock, several 
hundred feet high, forming part of the right 
bank of the river stands the old citadel, with 
its flat top and deep-embrasured walls, follow- 
ing the curved sweep of the high road. The old 

261 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



church, at first glance, seems built into the side 
of the cliff and only on coming within a few 
feet of the edifice you find that the cliff is the 
drop curtain directly back of it. A steep stair- 
way, with hundreds of steps cut into the cliff, 
leads down from the fort to the right of the 
church entrance. 

On Aug. 15, 1914, the Germans had the cita- 
del, having come in over the high road, and 
held the high country east of the river. The 
French troops occupied the west bank of the 
Meuse against its steep hills. The attack of 
the French, it is said, was so sudden that the 
steps down from the old fort to the church were 
clogged with dead Germans. At first it was a 
French victory and the joy of the people en- 
raged their enemies, who having witnessed the 
manifestations from the dominating heights, 
took their revenge in the massacres of Aug. 21 
to 25. 

The far end of the bridge and the public 
square or Grand Place was a surging mass of 
people as we walked toward it. Entering a 
hotel, overlooking the Place, whose windows 
and roof were packed with humanity, we tried 

262 



IN MARTYRED DINANT AND CHARLEROI 



to get to a window, but it was hopeless. Out 
through the crowd again we had pushed for- 
ward to the line of guards. Turning to one 
who seemed to have more gold on his uniform 
than the others I pointed to the " C " on my 
sleeve and in my best French told him I was a 
" Journaliste Americaine," had come over 
from Paris and must get through. He answered 
with an affirmative nod. I was puzzled. If I 
started across that open space would he fire 1 ? 
Turning to another guard I repeated my story 
and the English Fany girl tried some facile 
French on him. So much Flemish is spoken in 
Belgium, it is difficult to know how much 
French the people understand and nodding in 
the affirmative may mean nothing. Taking a 
chance we dashed across the clear space and I 
sprang on the running board of a parked auto 
where I faced, above the sea of heads, the jme 
strong figure of Cardinal Mercier, who had just 
begun his address. The cardinal made a won- 
derful picture in his brilliant red robes against 
the heavy purple velvet of the side altar, be- 
neath a canopy of black, fringed with silver. 
At his right the black canopy stretched over an 

263 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



improvised high altar with its tall waxen can- 
dles flaring in the outdoor breeze. At the right 
of this altar knelt the king and queen and their 
three children. "With them were the high offi- 
cials of the church, state and army to do honor 
to Dinant. In the foreground was the huge 
memorial catafalque draped in black. 

I had just clicked my kodak when I heard a 
sobbing at my feet and there on the running 
board sat seven-year-old Bernadette Poncelet 
in a white frock and purple sweater crying as 
if her heart would break. Her aunt, Mile 
Degraa, told me the cause of her tears. Forget- 
ting that I wanted to get the gist of the speech 
of Cardinal Mercier, the priest who had done 
so much to intercede for his people in their 
days of terror and whom the Germans had 
made a prisoner in his home but had never 
dared harm, I stepped down and brought back 
the smiles to Bernadette 's pretty eyes by pos- 
ing her for a picture, " for America." 

At that moment over the great crowd the 
strong, clear, voice of the old priest rang: " et 
un peloton les abattait comme des chiens " (and 
a platoon slaughtered them like clogs). " Hor- 

264 



IN MARTYRED DINANT AND CHARLEROI 



reur! J 'en frissonne encore anjourd'hui " 
(Horrors — I shudder still at them today). And 
there stood little Bernaclette, the child who had 
been in her father's arms a moment before he 
was shot, and she was smiling up at me. 

That little incident made the crowd about me 
very friendly. The chauffeur of the auto, which 
I learned was that of the crown prince, opened 
the door and asked me to be seated, that I could 
see better from there. I had no difficulty get- 
ting through after that. 

Among the notables present at the ceremony 
were M. P. Deschanel, president of the French 
Chamber of Deputies (now President of 
France) ; M. Paul Hymans, Belgian Minister of 
Foreign Affairs and the representative of the 
Belgian government; General Cadoux, com- 
mander of the 148th French Infantry at Di- 
nant on that memorable occasion, French, Eng- 
lish and Belgian generals and the governor of 
the province of Namur. 

There were such affectionate cheers for the 
tall King and the petite Queen as together, fol- 
lowed by their children, they walked down the 
outdoor aisle to their cars. You never would 

265 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



have known they were the King and Queen if 
they had not resembled their pictures. They 
are very democratic in mixing with their peo- 
ple. The young crown prince, the Duke of Bra- 
bant, was in the uniform of the English navy. 

After the crowd had dispersed I wandered 
up through the burned district of the town. 
Accosting a woman who was coming down the 
center of the cobbled street I learned she had 
been through the massacre. She had escaped 
with her sister and fled into the hills above the 
cliffs where they hid in holes in the ground and 
in caves for five days when the German soldiers 
found them and brought them back to prison. 
Her brother-in-law and his three children had 
been shot. " I cannot remember all — it was so 
terrible," she said and a dazed look came into 
her eyes. That dazed look told volumes of 
what memory refused to recall. What it must 
have meant to be a hunted thing in such days 
of terror! Everything is so high now she 
complained. Pointing to the neat black waist 
she wore she told us it was made from an old 
sheet, dyed black. We were passing the ruins 
of houses, every one of which held its tragedy. 

266 



IN MARTYRED DINANT AND CHARLEROI 

Inside the broken doorway of one were shells 
made into souvenirs. Before the war Dinant 
had been the seat of an industry of copper and 
brass novelties. 

We had luncheon in the walled-in garden of 
the picturesque old inn, the Hotel des Families, 
just off the public square, from where, by just 
raising our eyes we could see the old fort and 
the cliffs below it. And the bustling inn keeper, 
in his long-tailed coat was the counterpart of 
the stage character you have seen in the role. 
Only for the tragedy in his stern face. It was 
a long time until I could get M. DeWyntei* to 
tell me about it. His two sons had been put 
against a wall four times to be shot — they had 
been imprisoned — and only because he had in- 
sisted that he must close his hotel if he didn't 
have his sons' help were they spared. These 
sons are now in America to tell Dinant 's story 
to the New World. M. DeWynter told me he 
had quartered 40,000 German soldiers and 3,000 
officers, including nineteen generals, in his 
hotel. " Everything we have here today," he 
said, "is what we were able to hide from 
them." He had been there through the battle 

267 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



and pointing to the roof of an addition against 
the garden wall on the right he related 
how sparks from the burning honses had fallen 
there and he had carried up buckets of water 
to extinguish them. He had been there all 
through the massacres. He repeated a state- 
ment difficult to credit when I had heard it 
earlier in the day that he had seen " Boche 
foaming at the mouth with rage when they 
entered the city." 

There were harrowing stories at every turn 
and I thought of the American woman who said 
to me early in the war days, " You don't be- 
lieve those things could have happened, do 
you? " On the streets of Dinant they sold us 
twigs of blue forget-me-nots as souvenirs of 
this day. On our way out of the city we stopped 
at a wall before which stood a reverent multi- 
tude. A simple column tells that here 166 men, 
women and children were shot just five years 
ago. About the column and on the wall itself, 
lay sprays of beautiful flowers, among which 
was a wreath from the King and Queen. 

I knocked at the door of a house across the 
narrow street. A shrunken old woman an- 

268 



IN MARTYRED DINANT AND CHARLEROI 

swered. Yes, she had lived there that tragic 
day but she had run behind the house and hid ; 
she did not see it. And her eyes reflected the 
same horror, the same dazed helpless suffering 
I had seen in those of the woman on the street. 

Another incident of Dinant's tragedy was 
related to me in the train enroute here to Paris 
the following week, by an Antwerp man. He 
had fled to England with his wife and daughters 
the day before the bombardment of Antwerp. 
He was an importer of raw materials and his 
fortune, everything, had been swept away. His 
eyes filled when he spoke of his son lost in the 
war. He had gone to England where he worked 
as a clerk for twenty-five shillings a week, and 
such long hours. But he had to earn something 
to support his family. I mentioned having been 
in Dinant and he spoke of meeting a Dinant 
friend quite unexpectedly while clerking in 
England. " He told me something of what he 
had been through — he escaped finally by hav- 
ing himself put into a box." 

" Tell me about it," I said. 

This is the story he told me. The man was 
a successful contractor. He was among those 

269 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



stood up to be shot, but his knowledge of Ger- 
man had saved him. Repeatedly he had tried 
to leave the city but they would not permit his 
departure. He had heard of people escaping 
to Holland by being secreted in a box and 
shipped as merchandise. He applied to a man 
to make him a box but was warned that it was 
extremely hazardous. Dinant was a manufac- 
turing center for playing cards and he finally 
had one of the large card packing cases padded 
and supplied with food and water. Instead of 
one day, which it usually took to ship these 
cases across the frontier, his case was left four 
days on the platform of the station. Imagine 
his hours of torture and suspense! Finally it 
was put on a train and in a few hours thrown 
off at the destination. Then a man came to the 
side of the case and whispered " Monsieur, you 
are free." And pushing up the lid, which could 
only be opened from the inside, he stepped out 
into Holland. The Antwerp man assured me 
this had actually happened. His friend had 
drifted back to Amiens — where he was suc- 
ceeding well in business and had established 
his family when the bombardment of Amiens 

270 



IN MARTYRED DINANT AND CHARLEROI 

began and they again had to leave. " I do not 
know where he is now, ' ' he added, ' ' the last I 
heard his wife's health had broken down from 
all they had been through." 

M. Verhoeven, who is now manager of an 
importing house in Antwerp, explained, too, 
why the freedom of the Scheldt is essential for 
Belgium. Holland now controls both banks of 
the river and could bottle up the harbor. Also 
about Belgium's claim to Limburg on the east 
border, which he referred to as " Maastricht." 
This was Belgian territory until 1830 when it 
was taken by Holland. After listening to the 
claims of only a few nations one marvels how 
the Peace commission arrived at any treaty 
agreements at all. 

From Dinant we motored to Charleroi. The 
forts of Liege gave way after eleven long days, 
the last one surrendering on Aug. 15. Liege be- 
hind them, the Germans broke into two columns, 
one marching under the orders of Von Kluck 
upon Louvain and Brussels and the other, com- 
manded by Von Bulow, advanced toward 
Namur and Dinant. It was on Aug. 22 and 23 
that the two streams united in a manner dis- 

271 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



astrous for the British and the French at Mons 
and Charleroi. 

The battle of Charleroi is one of the great 
tragedies of the early days of the war. Its 
narrow streets, intersected by canals and 
crossed by bridges, proved most treacherous. 
The city itself, covering a large area, lies under 
the slope of a hill. Poilus describing the battle 
as it went on in the streets of Charleroi are 
quoted as saying, " We were up to our knees 
in the dead." 

That day as we entered, Charleroi looked 
strangely peaceful in the mid-afternoon sun. 
We passed huge factories, in some of which the 
wheels are beginning to turn, and on the out- 
skirts were coal mines, high black heaps of coal 
against the horizon. In 1916 from Charleroi 
10,000 workmen were deported. 

From Charleroi we went on to Marchienne 
where our cars rolled under the high gates and 
into the beautiful outer garden of the Chateau 
de Marchienne. Here we were given a cordial 
welcome by the Baron de Cartier de Mar- 
chienne, brother to the Belgian Ambassador in 
Washington, and his mother was a hospitable 

272 







<^^^^^^^^m ' 




: ':,.*. " I? ' i 






flkL Ww 






Hre^f^. 






^^T' 


\ < ^L-i_^^B 




r*i^.I ■ W 






i^ ^ j^" : 




| . Mm ^Bmw 







Little Bernadette Poncelet.. who was a babe in the arms of her father when the 

German officer entered his home in Dinant, Belgium, to shoot him. One 

of the children chosen to present flowers to the Queen on the 

anniversary of the massacre. 



IN MARTYRED DINANT AND CHARLEROI 

hostess. She is a charming Englishwoman. For 
four years they had had German officers quar- 
tered in their home, she told me. It was such 
a relief to be rid of them. We were taken 
through a hallway and vestibule, through a 
stately living room and out into a rose garden 
where century-old ivy curtained the chateau 
walls. For two hundred years it has been the 
family seat. There was such frank friendli- 
ness for the Americans in the party, the reflec- 
tion of the spirit of gratitude to the United 
States for its help to the Belgians, that I found 
everywhere in my ten days in that brave little 
land. Here I also met Hon. Wm. L. Hounold, 
formerly London director of the American 
Commission for Belgian Relief, one of the four 
noted men associated with Mr. Hoover in that 
work. 

The shadows of night were falling as we 
drove past the historic field of Waterloo on our 
way back to Brussels. There on a high bluff 
as a reminder stands the British lion. He faces 
Germany. I was told there is a movement on 
foot to have him turn his back on Berlin now. 
And as we rushed past in the bouncing car it 

273 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



did look as if the beast were wagging his tail at 
me. I may have been mistaken. But as Gen- 
eral Pershing says : " We are all Anglo-Saxon 
now." 



274 



CHAPTER XX 

MEETING THE COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF 

Paris, Aug. 30. 

THIS morning I had a little talk with Gen- 
eral John J. Pershing, Commander-in- 
chief of the American Army. 

Word from the American Press bureau had 
come saying that General Pershing would say 
farewell to the American correspondents at 12 
o'clock today at his residence; later the place 
was changed to his office, in the A. E. F. head- 
quarters in the Avenue Montaigne. He is to 
sail tomorrow for home. 

I arrived at the headquarters, which is only 
a block from my hotel, fifteen minutes before 
the appointed time and was waiting in an ante- 
room. All was bustle and hurry in the halls 
where huge packing cases were being nailed up. 
People kept coming and going. Interviewing 
Commanders-in-chief of victorious armies has 
not been an every day occurrence in my life. I 
had never talked to one before. I was thrilled. 
I pictured myself one of a group of corre- 

275 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



spondents in a shadowy private office before a 
stern-visaged man, wearing a triple line of 
medals across his coat, who was making a 
formal statement. I took a calling card from 
my handbag for, of course, a fmnkie would 
soon be asking for one. 

A door from an inner room opened and a tall 
man in olive-drab entered the anteroom. He 
walked to its center. An Englishman, seated 
near the farther window, arose and hastened 
forward. They shook hands warmly and stand- 
ing there in the middle of the room chatted for 
a few moments. I heard the "Englishman say 
he had just returned from South Africa and 
was going back. 

I was wondering, vaguely, the rank of the 
man in khaki. He wore no insignia; at least 
none was visible from where I sat, near the 
door. There was not even a wound stripe on 
his sleeve and no mark on the side of the collar 
toward me. By this time I am so accustomed 
to war crosses that it takes a double row or 
none at all to attract my attention. 

The tall man in khaki stepped toward me. 
" What can I do for you," he asked. 

276 



MEETING THE COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF 

Something in the way he held his head, some- 
thing in the steady look in his eyes was familiar 
— it reminded me of the lone horseman in khaki 
in the Victory parade. 

I was on my feet. < ' You are not — are you 
General Pershing? " I stammered. 

" I am," said the man without war decora- 
tions. 

T handed him my card. ' ' Now what does all 
this mean? " he asked pleasantly as his eye 
traveled down the list of names and cities of 
the newspapers of the Lee Syndicate. He was 
giving me a chance to recover my poise. "Ah, 
Hannibal, Missouri," he breathed. "Well!" 
Missouri claims General Pershing and the Com- 
mander-in-chief has a soft spot in his heart for 
Missouri. Hence the smile reminiscent that 
came into his eyes. 

" Tell me about our soldier boys," I begged. 

A look of pride came over his face. ' ' They 
are fine," he said. And I wish every dough- 
boy's mother could have heard him say it — 
yes, and his father and his sisters, his cousins 
and his aunts. ' ' They are all fine soldiers, our 



277 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



American boys," he emphasized. Then this: 

" I don't know whether you know the thrill 
of seeing him go into battle," he said, his eyes 
shining. " He is wonderful, our American so.l- 
dier ! " 

" Out where I live, General, they have been 
talking of you for president," I began. 

He threw out both hands, as if warding off 
something and laughed : ' ' Not a word on that 
— not a word." 

' ' Can you look at a person and write a story 
about them? " General Pershing put the ques- 
tion to me, direct. I thought I could. " Then 
go ahead about me," he said and the interview 
was at an end. 

I don't suppose the kaiser ever saw General 
Pershing. But if he had he never would have 
wanted to meet our Commander-in-chief with 
that glint of steel in his eyes on a sultry after- 
noon strolling along the Siegesalle in Berlin. 
Then Wilhelm Hohenzollern would have had a 
real reason for escaping to Holland — only he 
would not have escaped. 

He typifies our American soldier — all we 
ever want him to be — does General Pershing. 

278 



MEETING THE COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF 

No higher praise could be given any man. And 
France! With smiles of thanks and fondest 
tears she is preparing to bid farewell to the 
tall, serene man, who led the host of brave lads 
from across an ocean wide to her rescue. 

' ' Zhenerale Parshaing ! ' ' You should hear 
them say it: " Veeve, Zhenerale Parshaing! " 



279 



CHAPTER XXI 

WHEN AUSTRIA SIGNED 

Paris, Sept. 10. 

HE WAS a large framed, fat man, with a 
bald head, chin whiskers, and heavy, 
black rimmed spectacles. He stepped to the 
center of the crowded, silent room, to an ornate 
table on which lay a stack of papers, what ap- 
peared to be the manuscript of a book. Push- 
ing his glasses up on his forehead, he grasped 
a pen and, examining it closely, he bent over 
the table. A man in black at his left moved 
aside a pace. The pen traveled across the 
paper. It was a tense moment. Raising him- 
self up, the fat man looked benignly over at the 
seated line of statesmen, bordering the three 
sides of the crimson velvet and white-blotter 
covered continuous table line, that framed the 
space about him. That was Carl Renner, chan- 
cellor and sole plenipotentiary of the new Aus- 
trian Republic, affixing Austria's signature to 
the Treaty of Peace. Curiously pathetic he was 

280 



WHEN AUSTRIA SIGNED 



at that moment, the lone figure standing for a 
powerful Empire, now by his signature reduced 
to a small nation. 

Directly facing Rentier, across the blotter- 
topped, crimson velvet table and never taking 
his keen eyes from the other's face, was a little, 
wiry man with thinning white hair and droop- 
ing, white mustaches. Yes, that was The Tiger. 
He dominated that throng with a personality 
so strong that, subconsciously, all eyes were 
upon M. Clemenceau at that historic moment. 

This morning I saw Austria take her medi- 
cine — and it was Clemenceau who held the 
spoon. 

At the right of the French Premier, fine and 
soldierly in his uniform, sat our Gen. Tasker H. 
Bliss, who made a commanding figure as he 
came forward to the treaty table to sign for 
our own United States. Next to him sat Hon. 
Henry White, and then Hon. Frank L. Polk, 
the distinguished heads of the American Com- 
mission to Negotiate Peace. Then came M. 
Tardieu, M. Pinchot, and then the Italian dele- 
gation headed by M. Tittoni. And rounding 
the corner of the board the Belgian delegates 

281 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



under M. Hymans ; then the Poland delegation 
with M. Paderewski, his strong white face and 
heavy sweeping locks making him its dominat- 
ing figure. Across the table, at the inner rim, 
were the Chinese, Cubans, and Nicaraguans. To 
the left of M. Clemenceau was the Hon. Arthur 
James Balfour, very tall, courtly and suave, 
with a group of England's statesmen, and be- 
yond them the delegates of Canada, Australia, 
South Africa, New Zealand, India, Japan, 
Greece, Panama, Portugal, and Siam. As each 
went forward to sign the document there was a 
shifting of the picture, but always the setting 
remained the same. 

It is a large, oblong room, this Stone Age 
hall of the Chateau of St. Germain-en-Laye. 
At the farther end is a tall brick fireplace, with 
a white-columned mantel above, from which the 
white marble busts of two distinguished French 
savants looked down upon the throng. On its 
walls are pictures of ancient mammals, and 
mysterious colored prints that would gladden 
the heart of any antiquarian. 

The last time a treaty was signed in this 
room was back in the sixteenth century, when 

282 



WHEN AUSTRIA SIGNED 



the state, which was Catholic, signed a treaty 
with the Protestants. James n of England 
was exiled here in 1689. Built on the site of an 
ancient fortress, it has seen many vicissitudes 
as the home of French kings. There is a white 
lady who is supposed to haunt the chateau, 
though when and why I could not ascertain. 
Today the stately pile is used as a museum, 
chiefly of prehistoric specimens, and the man 
in charge of this particular hall only consented 
to clear it for the treaty ceremony, because 
he considered that rather important. The di- 
rector of the museum, Solomon Reinach, is the 
principal authority on the prehistoric in the 
world today. 

Only a few of the glass cases with their price- 
less specimens had been left against the wall 
at the entrance of the treaty ceremony hall. In 
the center were two signing tables, with an- 
other table set crosswise on which were other 
treaties — some ten or twelve in all covering 
minor matters — and the signers went from one 
to another. The continuous blottered desk line, 
on three sides, enclosed the center space, about 
which numerous secretaries, carrying large 

283 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



portfolios hurried to and fro. Glass inkstands 
and pentrays were the only ornaments on the 
blotters. 

The fourth or open side of the oblong 
was filled in by a standing, black coated throng 
of men, about three hundred in all, with not 
more than five women. Small groups of dis- 
tinguished guests were seated on scarlet cush- 
ioned, gold-backed chairs in the foreground, 
and within the enclosed, red-carpeted space. 
Prominent among these was Mrs. Frank L. 
Polk, wife of the head of the American Com- 
mission to Negotiate Peace, in a dove gray 
costume and hat, who sat near the center cross 
desk, where almost every signer stopped to 
give her his autograph. Hon. Hugh Campbell 
Wallace, our American Ambassador, was an 
outstanding figure in that center group, as was 
Colonel Wallace. The Hon. Harold Nicholson 
of England, who wrote the financial clauses of 
the treaty, was pointed out. And then from 
among the group of English experts the man 
who, it is whispered, hung up the treaty for so 
long. 

The entire end of the hall opposite the mantel 
284 



WHEN AUSTRIA SIGNED 



was given over to the press of the world, about 
sixty correspondents, among whom I was the 
only woman. Floyd Gibbons was a notable fig- 
ure among the writers present. Behind me a 
couple of Chinese journalists were trying to 
kodak the scene. 

It was almost nine o'clock this morning when 
motoring out from Paris in a press car, we came 
into the picturesque, reserved road to St. Ger- 
main. It was a wonderful morning, full of 
sunshine and bird song, as we rolled through the 
beautiful, villa-lined route, past the Forest of 
St. Germain and along the Seine. St. Germain 
is a quaint, bustling little city, that manages to 
look commercial until you round the turn to its 
medieval, towered chateau in the heart of town. 
Then you feel yourself transported back to the 
times of the "Knights of the Round Table." 

A magic card, with a green diagonal stripe 
across its face, inscribed " Carte d 'invitation 
donnant acces a la Salle de la Signature," 
(invitation card giving access to the signature 
hall) was the fairy wand. It allowed me across 
a French-soldier bordered street, through a 
high gate, past numerous suspicious function- 

285 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



aries in medieval livery, over a moat bridge, 
out- into a courtyard and on to the famous ter- 
race, where there was a crowd behind another 
horizon-blue, gun-bristling line of French Dra- 
goons. Only hesitating for a moment I slipped 
past two solemn figures in black, into a nar- 
row doorway and then up and up what seemed 
an endless wind of white stone steps. There 
was an outer room with museum cases about — 
and then the magic door itself. For the cour- 
tesy of that card, which was one of only ten ex- 
tended to the American press in Paris, I am 
indebted to Charles Stephenson Smith, of the 
Associated Press, better known as the Am- 
bassador of American Journalism, to Miss 
Catherine Groth, now director of the Paris 
American Press Bureau and to Lawrence Hills 
of the New York Sun bureau. 

In the signing room at St. Germain chateau 
at 9 :30 we were early enough to watch the celeb- 
rities arrive. The American delegation ap- 
peared first among the representatives of the 
big allied powers. There was a pleasant at- 
mosphere of handshaking and an informal buzz 
of conversation. Men kept coming up to dele- 

286 



WHEN AUSTRIA SIGNED 



gates seated at desks, and shoving, at them au- 
tograph books or postcards to be signed. 

" I think that is low class business, doncher- 
know, this rushing around getting auto- 
graphs," jeered the famous English journalist 
who had the chair at my left in the front row. 
But it seems to be a feature of every treaty 
signing program. " What do you suppose those 
secretaries carry in those enormous port- 
folios? " another asked. 

Just at that moment there was a crash of 
glass back of us and a daring spirit, climbing 
over the high windowsill at our left, had stepped 
through the glass top of one of the cases of 
priceless stone age relics beneath it. When I 
caught a glimpse of him he was disappearing 
outside on the window ledge, clutching his 
camp stool, the inevitable camp stool that is a 
part of the scenic setting of every crowd in 
France, whether at a picnic or a treaty cere- 
mony. ' ' Must have been a movie man — I hope 
no correspondent would have disgraced the 
profession by such actions," commented the 
journalist at my right. 

Several members of the Chinese and Japa- 
287 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



nese delegations were observed in close discus- 
sion for a few moments. Was it Shantung, 
do you suppose"? Or just the weather? 

A man passed wearing the rosette of the 
Legion of Honor. Another was carrying a silk 
hat and a kodak. There were many carrying 
canes and silk hats. A flurry — here comes a 
gendarme in the blue uniform, with the red 
stripes, bringing a telegram. He hands it to 
M. Clemenceau. Someone suggests Rumania 
has changed her mind and will sign. Perhaps 
it is Serbia! Only these two are absent from 
the treaty table. 

Paderewski arrives and there is a stir — in- 
voluntarily you look for the piano. But Pade- 
rewski is more than a world musician now, he 
is a world patriot. He shakes hands with his 
delegation and then with a group of Americans. 
His fine, dreamy face has not changed since he 
played his minuet as an encore — only his wav- 
ing hair seems to have much gray in it. Po- 
land's sorrows have weighed heavily upon his 
heart. " He was never going to play again 
until Poland was free," a voice near me says. 

Then there is a hush — Clemenceau has arisen 
288 



WHEN AUSTRIA SIGNED 



and is speaking. Just a few words in French in 
explanation of the peace treaty. When the 
Premier is seated, Carl Renner, the Austrian 
delegate, comes out from among the group be- 
fore the fireplace. Over my head the moving 
picture machine grinds swiftly. 

As the delegates of the big allied nations 
come forward to sign, everyone is alert. It is 
easy to recognize the men who have played the 
leading roles in the world drama of today, the 
allied and associated plenipotentiaries, as they 
step into the spotlight of history by signing 
their names to the voluminous document on 
that spindle-legged table. M. Clemenceau is 
vividly alive as he signs. M. Tittoni and the 
Italian delegates are smiling. This is to Italy 
what the signing at Versailles was to France. 

The flaring interest flickers low as the smaller 
nations come on in order. " Miss Adler, call 
me when China signs," sighed the correspond- 
ent of one of the foremost New York papers as 
he wilted into a chair. He had been perched 
high up next to the motion picture man at the 
crucial moment. 

A distracting incident right here. A stir at 
289 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



the doorway and a girl in the C. A. R. D. French 
blue uniform slips in and seats herself on one 
of the glass specimen cases along the end wall. 
There is much audible sympathy for the museum 
man and his precious collection. But the glass 
top holds. A moment later and a large French- 
man boosts himself, silk hat and cane, on to 
the adjoining glass case, swinging his spatted 
ankles recklessly. " Oh, Boy, something is go- 
ing to happen, ' ' exclaims a famous writer at my 
elbow. And he, with the rest of us, miss a de- 
tail of the ceremony in the center of the hall, 
waiting breathlessly for that specimen case 
to break. 

" Perfectly disgusting — that autograph 
hunting — my word it is," fumes the London 
correspondent. Secretaries are hovering over 
delegates in front of us, getting signatures. 
" Wonder how many Mrs. Polk got," someone 
remarks. 

Right here I determined to enter the auto- 
graph game for a few minutes first hand ex- 
perience, since it has become such a treaty fad. 
Our American delegates were charmingly ac- 



290 



WHEN AUSTRIA SIGNED 



quiescent. Gen. Bliss and the Hon. Mr. Polk 
signed for me. M. Clemenceau passed by. ' ' I 
forget how to sign my name," he said in very 
good English, and then, smiling, grasped my 
hand and shook it cordially. 

I understood. Signing his name has been al- 
together too serious a matter with M. Clem- 
enceau these days. The hour was too sacred. 
Who could blame him? He had laid the double- 
headed arch enemy of France low at last. His 
glorious France was now the cornerstone of 
the peace of the world. Fifty years he had 
waited to affix his name to a treaty that would 
insure to France some retribution for her suf- 
ferings — and this final scene — what signing 
his name must have meant to that proud-spirit- 
ed old premier. Commissioner Polk spoke, 
" M. Clemenceau never gives his autograph 
to anyone." Later I heard he had refused it 
even to M. Tardieu. 

The final moment of the peace ceremony was 
impressive. Strongly, simply, the words of M. 
Clemenceau rang through the hall, announcing 
that the Treaty of St. Germain was concluded. 



291 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



And here, where months before Austria had re- 
ceived the treaty terms from the Allies, here 
in the self-same hall, she was today signed up 
to pay in full her price for the war. 



292 



CHAPTER XXII 

IN ITALY, ON THE PIAVE 

Venice, Sept. 26. 

IT WAS a stiff climb for the chugging gray 
motor car, but each turn in the winding 
road, densely wooded at either side, disclosed 
new vistas of scenic grandeur ahead. Every 
little while, through a break in the shrubbery, 
there was a glimpse of a valley, where, in a 
wide, stony bed, a blue, blue river winded sinu- 
ously. Out from a shedlike structure at the 
right of the road dashed a chubby-faced soldier 
in a green-gray uniform with trimmings of black 
and a visored cap; he shouted and waved his 
hands. Behind him, from an entrance way 
rushed two more green-gray clad soldiers, their 
caps worn jauntily. They were wildly excited. 
From their gestures it was evident we could not 
go on. What a bore ! ' ' Fermato ' ' I shouted to 
the chauffeur who was going on, anyway. 
"Show them your official letter" suggested 
Miss Bennett, the English girl traveling with 

293 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



me. The seal on the official letter had awed peo- 
ple before. The chubby-faced soldier was 
breathless when he reached us. The English 
girl understood his language. " He says we 
can't go on — they are exploding mines ahead 
— they are due to go off in a half hour," she 
said. 

Yes, this is Sunny Italy and we were on the 
Piave River,, up on the Montello, where, less 
than a year ago, was the front line of the Italian 
Army. 

Eleven mines, left by the English who had 
been there in the big drive, had been set off. 
In hardly twenty minutes they came, the first 
a deep-throated intonation that made everyone 
exclaim "Ah." By the time nine more rent the 
September afternoon stillness I knew what it 
must have sounded like up there on the hills 
above the Piave when the Italians defended its 
heights from the Austrian hosts on the hills 
beyond the narrow blue stream that seemed so 
motionless in its far-below rocky bed. Climb- 
ing to a knoll, I had a wide view of the sweep 
of the river that has a deeper significance for 
Americans than any other Italian front, since 

294 - 



IN ITALY, ON THE PIAVE 



it was on the Piave that the only regiment of 
American troops fought, the 332d, made up 
chiefly of Ohio men. A deep square cut into 
the turf, the Italian guard made me under- 
stand, was where one of their cannon had stood. 
There was still plenty of barbed wire about. 

As the explosions of the mines came the 
ground trembled. From the shedlike structure 
there came the terrified cry of a child, the little 
sick bambino of the farmhouse, which served 
as the outpost for that squad guarding the road. 
We counted ten explosions and as the eleventh 
did not come and the Italian guard insisted 
there were eleven, we decided to turn back. 
In rounding the curve ahead to find a place wide 
enough to turn the car we came upon the re- 
mainder of the guard who had set off the ex- 
plosions. They were evidently going to investi- 
gate what happened to the eleventh mine. I 
refused to be curious. Eleven never was my 
lucky number. Anyway, I was keen to get 
across the Piave, down to where our Yankee 
lads had lent their splendid aid to Italy. 

I came within fifteen minutes of not getting 
to Italy. I had to have permission from four 

295 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



different countries, the United States, France, 
Switzerland and Italy. To get these four visaes 
on my passport required infinite time, much 
formality and much more patience. Train res- 
ervations were the next obstacle. None were 
to be had for ten days, but through the efforts 
of Lieut. Stroppa, head of the press section of 
the Italian Peace Delegation in Paris, and who 
had gotten my passport visaed by the Paris 
Prefecture of Police himself, we were finally 
able to secure reservations for Monday night. 
It was 11 :30 Monday morning when I stood 
in the Swiss consulate in Paris, waiting to get 
my visa, as the route to Verona lay through 
Switzerland. The office for the ' ' wagon lit ' ' 
or sleeper closed at twelve o'clock. And the 
line into the room where the final stamp was 
placed on the passports comprised some twenty 
people ahead of me. As each required at least 
ten minutes it began to look hopeless. I turned 
to the young woman who had just stamped my 
passport. " Can't you do anything for me 1 ? " 
I pleaded. " Unless I leave tonight I shall be 
compelled to give up my trip to Italy and the 
wagon-lit office closes in a half hour." She 

296 



IN ITALY, ON THE PIAVE 



took the papers out of my hands and disap- 
peared through a door back of her desk. In 
five minutes she returned with everything com- 
pleted. She refused pourboire so I tried to tell 
her, in a burst of gratitude, that I hoped if she 
ever came to my country someone would do as 
much for her. She smiled happily. " I hope to 
come to America some day, ' ' was what she said. 
And I had been assured at the American pass- 
port bureau that I could not get a Swiss visa 
because my passport did not read for Switzer- 
land. It was a wild taxi ride to the reserva- 
tion 's office but we made it or I should not have 
crossed the Piave three times yesterday, which 
I believe is oftener than the Austrians crossed 
it in any one day, though the cables had them 
crossing and recrossing it innumerable times 
a year ago. 

Traveling in Italy is still very difficult. 
Though we had our tickets from Paris to Ve- 
rona, we were obliged to get out of the train 
at Milan at 4 o'clock the following afternoon, 
as the sleeper was taken off and there was no 
place in the remainder of the train, though our 
destination was only a couple of hours farther. 

297 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



We had come on the Simplon-Orient Express, 
through the marvelous Simplon tunnel that is 
cut through the Swiss mountains, a gigantic 
engineering feat. The tunnel requires about 
twenty-five minutes to traverse its length, but a 
defective air brake caused our train to stop 
after we had traveled some ten minutes through 
the dark cavern. We were delayed for the 
longest ten minutes I ever expect to live 
through, nothing visible from the compartment 
windows but sheer walls of rock on either side. 
There was no panic. Everyone waited. And 
we discussed how long the air would last. It 
was a blessed relief when the wheels began to 
turn slowly. And the sunlight never before 
seemed quite so good as when we emerged from 
the tunnel at Iselle. 

Crossing two frontiers we had to pass inspec- 
tion of customs officers twice. The French 
duane came at six in the morning and their 
chief concern was whether we carried more 
than a thousand francs in French money, the 
maximum paper that may be taken from the 
country. No gold may be taken at all. Five 
august officials stood in the doorway of our 

298 



IN ITALY. ON THE PIAVE 



compartment and we had just shown them our 
currency and answered that we had no gold 
coin. One asked for my handbag and pro- 
ceeded to search it. He was rummaging through 
it when I saw what attracted his attention. It 
was a gold pencil glittering in its depths, the 
farewell gift of The Times editorial force, that 
nearly got me into difficulty. When he found 
it was a pencil he handed the bag back with 
what sounded like an apology. At the Italian 
frontier the customs officials came to ask if we 
carried chocolate, sugar, coffee or cigars. 

The early morning ride through Switzerland 
carries the memory of the Jungfrau, snow- 
capped, and another mountain lost in the clouds, 
and a spired, little, white church rising straight 
from the center of a nestling mountain village. 
After the big Simplon we went through many 
little tunnels until we reached the frontier town 
of Domo d'Ossola and then we were in Italy. 
Past Lago Maggiore,, or Lake Major, to trans- 
late its musical name, with lovely little dream 
isles in its center on which were clustered what 
looked from the train distance like toy houses. 
The villages in Italy are wonderfully pictur- 

299 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



esque — everywhere one looks it is a picture. 
We decided to remain in Milan for the night, 
where after much difficulty we found room in 
a hotel, for everything was crowded. In a 
quaint one horse vehicle we drove about the 
streets and then to the great cathedral which 
is such a marvelous example of Gothic architec- 
ture. It looked like a huge frosted cake in the 
sunset, that Cathedral of Milan with its lacelike 
exterior, the sun's rays glinting from its count- 
less spires. The interior is noble in its pro- 
portions with its huge marble columns and its 
inlaid marble floors are worn uneven by the 
many who have come and gone. There are no 
seats in the massive body of the cathedral, giv- 
ing the eye full sweep and adding to its mag- 
nificence. 

It was dark and rainy at 5 o'clock the next 
morning when the funny little, one horse, Italian 
cab,, with the driver, umbrella-shielded, on the 
high front seat juggled us over the rough pave- 
ment to the Milan depot where we caught the 
train for Verona. Verona was the headquarters 
of the American regiment in Italy and in addi- 
tion it was the home of Juliet whom Shakes- 
peare immortalized. 

300 



IN ITALY, ON THE PIAVE 



In the train compartment with us was an 
Italian general and his wife. Miss Bennett 
spoke Italian to them and the general inquired 
what the " C " on my sleeve meant. She told 
him I was an American correspondent and he 
spoke in glowing terms of what the American 
Red Cross had done in Italy and how grateful 
they were to America for the supplies and 
money given through the Red Cross. He told 
me he had fought in the Grappa and Asiago and 
modestly refused to talk of the three stars on 
his croix de guerre. I tried to get him to ex- 
press himself on d'Annunzio but he refused to 
give an opinion further than that Fiume was 
Italian absolutely and the only thing possible 
was to give it to the Italians. He did not be- 
lieve it was wise to give Italy the city and the 
port to the Jugo Slavs. The Italians must 
have both. He said Wilson was at the head of a 
syndicate of American bankers, which was quot- 
ing what the morning Italian paper, the Milan 
Populo, had said. I asked about the feeling 
of Italians against Americans on account of 
Fiume. He insisted they were the best of 
friends. Militarily, America had not been 

301 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



largely represented in Italy and he had not come 
personally in contact with American soldiers. 
He said, however, that the American and Eng- 
lish soldiers had been well provided for by 
their countries, but the Italian soldier had suf- 
fered great privations, since Italy had been too 
poor to provide good food, shelter and clothing, 
but the Italian soldier had never grumbled. I 
liked the glowing terms in which he spoke of 
the valor of the Italian soldier. 

It was shortly after nine when we reached 
Verona which is highly Italian with its quaint 
old houses and statuary adorned buildings. To 
my American eyes, exquisite statuary set 
around on cornices, over doorways, and in wall 
niches seemed the exuberance of art. And I 
thought of my one and only highly treasured 
Venus riding the snail and how carefully it now 
was covered at home. Here they have so many 
marble statues they set them around on the 
outside of the houses and on the gateways. 
Figures blackened with age they are but re- 
taining their exquisite proportions, giving that 
touch of art everywhere which is so distinctly 
Italian. 

302 



IN ITALY, ON THE PIAVE 



In a rickety, one horse, cab we went in. search 
of the house of the Capulets and here I was 
destined to my first big shock. After having 
thrilled at ' ' Romeo and Juliet ' ' in the Opera in 
Paris, with Romeo sighing over a flower-hung 
balcony looking out on a lovely garden, I was 
wholly unprepared to see Juliet's balcony on 
the third floor of an ugly, straight-up-from-the 
street, stone building, where Romeo never could 
have reached it unless he was a porch climber. 
It would have baffled even a Douglas Fairbanks 
— that balcony with its unattractive iron rail- 
ing. Then as the little shop-lined street below 
was only about ten feet wide the neighbors must 
all have listened to Romeo's wooing. Of course 
in those days there were no clanging street cars 
winding down the narrow thoroughfare, as there 
are today, that made the cab hug the two-foot 
sidewalk. I might have refused to believe the 
old cab driver if he had not pointed to the white 
stone marker over the arched entrance, which 
reads that " This is the House of the Capulets 
from whom sprang Juliet, whose renown has 
been sung by gentle hearts and poets." They 
wanted to take me to the tomb of Juliet, but I 

303 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



refused. That was enough romance smashed 
for one day. 

Verona has a wonderful old marketplace, with 
an ancient statue-corniced palace at one end. 
Next to it is an old place with half-obliterated 
frescoes of marvelous hues still visible on its 
outer walls and below, in the bustling market 
square, were the white-umbrella shaded stalls, 
with tomatoes and fruits and lettuce piled high 
with the artist eye to color effects. Here and 
there were rusty braziers of roasting chest- 
nuts. An ornate tomb of a Fourteenth century 
Veronese family is right in the heart of the 
city. 

On the way to the depot the cabdriver insisted 
on our stopping to see the old Roman arena, 
its tiers of worn stone seats holding 25,000 peo- 
ple in the days when the gladiators held forth 
there. When General Pershing went through 
Italy before sailing for home a few weeks ago 
an immense spectacle was given in this arena 
in his honor. There is a large barracks in 
Verona and we saw many Italian soldiers about 
them, the Carabinieri, with their three cor- 
nered Napoleonic hats, and the Bersaglieri, 

304 



IN ITALY. ON THE PI AVE 



with the tuft of cock feathers falling fetchingiy 
over one side, being specially attractive. 

On the train from Verona to Venice an Italian 
captain tried to tell us the feeling for Amer- 
icans in Italy was unchanged. That the ques- 
tion of Fiume is a diplomatic one. The Amer- 
icans have nothing to do with it — now the 
Italians must settle it for themselves. At this 
moment the situation in Italy in regard to 
Fiume is very tense with d'Annunzio prepared 
to hold out to the end and the dispatches in the 
Italian papers saying President Wilson will not 
change his decision, though Clemenceau and 
Lloyd George are willing that Italy should have 
Fiume. 

We passed through Padua which recalls the 
' ' Merchant of Venice ' ' and reached the Queen 
of the Adriatic, as Venice is called, at five in 
the afternoon. 

To be transported by gondola from the sta- 
tion to the hotel was a pleasant experience 
after the dirty train, for travel in Italy is still 
suffering from the war and is anything but 
sanitary and comfortable. Just as you see him 
in pictures, minus the red sash and cap, the 

305 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



gondolier stands at the back of the boat and 
with one oar guides it magically over the smooth 
waters, keeping up a running comment in patois 
with the passing gondoliers. He has a peculiar 
cry to announce his coming around the sharp 
turns of the smaller canals, after he leaves 
the Grand Canal, that sounds like " Wah hee " 
and serves the same purpose as the honk of an 
auto. The gondola is a long, narrow skiff, al- 
ways painted black, which gives it a mysterious 
air, with the prow end of a quaint iron design. 
Gondoliering is dustless and most luxurious, 
even if it is slow. So here in Venice, if you 
belong to the F. F. V.'s you have your private 
gondola and your gondolier. A few ultra- 
moderns have steam launches but they lack the 
Venetian charm. No, there are no automobiles 
for there are no streets on which to run them. 
In the soft sunshine of the late afternoon we 
passed the Venice boat market with its boats 
piled high with colorful fruits and vegetables, 
arranged always like a picture, and through the 
web of small canals, under the Bridge of Sighs, 
the white marble enclosed bridge from the 
Palais de Justice to the Prison, and into the 

306 



IN ITALY, ON THE PIAVE 



Grand Canal again and up to the dock of the 
Hotel Royal Danieli, which is so cosmopolitan 
that the room clerk speaks English. 

I had been told at Cook's, where I had gone 
as a last, resort, that it would be impossible for 
me to get to the Piave battlefield. They have 
no trips to the Italian battlefronts. Though I 
carried letters with the seal of the Italian Peace 
Delegation in Paris I was assured there was no 
means of transportation. Italy has made no 
feature of exhibiting her battlefields and they 
are most inaccessible. It was the hotel con- 
cierge who knew a garage at Mestre where we 
might be able to rent a car, but it would cost 400 
lire or more. 

The next morning at nine o'clock we were 
standing outside the little depot at Mestre, 
which is an hour's rail trip from Venice, sur- 
rounded by beseeching, chattering cabbies, 
vainly looking for the promised car to take us 
over the Piave. At last a purple-silk-sweater 
attired damsel, wearing heavy jeweled earrings, 
rings and necklace appeared to tell us some- 
thing had happened to the car and it would be 
ready in fifteen minutes — and would we ac- 

307 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



company her to the garage. On the tramcar 
into the town we passed a gipsy caravan. Senor 
Tagliano, the owner of the garage, was one of 
only fonr men who remained in Mestre when 
the city was evacuated for the war. He pointed 
out for us where a shell had fallen and where 
he had stood on the road only one hundred feet 
away at the time. In the station at Mestre 450 
people had been killed during one attack. 

It was after eleven when the auto with the 
Italian driver, who wore a black band across his 
forehead to hide an ugly wound scar, started 
from Mestre for Treviso. The Austrians got 
to within fifteen kilometers of Treviso at one 
time, a quaint old city with arcaded buildings 
along the crooked streets and a marvelous old 
gateway. 

On the road we passed a field full of old 
camions, remnants of the war days and then we 
came to Spresiano, the first ruined town and 
which was the scene of a terrific battle in 1917- 
18 that gave the Italians victory. In a wooden 
shack, used now as a restaurant, I talked with 
the engineer in charge of the buildings being 
constructed by the government. He said about 

308 



IN ITALY, ON THE PIAVE 



half of the population of the village was back. 

Then we came to the Piave river that here is 
very narrow but lies in a wide rocky bed. This 
is the dry season. We crossed to the opposite 
bank to the village of Susegana, which had been 
badly shelled. The bridge we crossed over was 
a new temporary structure since the old stone 
bridge had been destroyed by the Italians in 
their retreat in 1917. As I tried to get a kodak 
view it was difficult to distinguish where the 
blue Italian sky and the blue waters of the Piave 
met, they blended into one glory of color on 
the horizon. 

At Nervesa about fifty of the village people 
surrounded us and were very friendly. It is a 
terribly shattered town, just a few broken walls 
and hollow exteriors greeting the eye at every 
street turn. But several new houses were be- 
ing erected and the half of the population, that 
has wandered back from the south of Italy and 
Sicily to where they had been evacuated, are 
living as best they can in remnants of tumbling 
down, shelled houses. Here it was that the vil- 
lage belle came out to talk to us, a beautiful 
Italian girl with dusky hair, piled high, and 

309 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



stuck with fanciful pins, a radiant skin and such 
pearly teeth. Her people had owned the town 
inn. She confided to me that she wanted to go 
to America, She had only been back in Nervesa 
a few weeks. The grandmother of the village, 
bent and old, came out too. They had been hav- 
ing a hard time they said. No one seemed to 
know what they were going to do this winter but 
they were very philosophical about it. After 
all, they were back in their own village. It is 
home, if there is but little left. 

From Nervesa we started up the winding hill 
road on to the Montello which was the front line 
in November, 1918, when the Italians made 
their heroic stand on the Piave. We stopped 
to talk at a farmhouse. The people had not 
been back long but had planted their maize from 
which is made the Polenta, the favorite dish of 
this region, like nothing so much as our corn- 
bread of the south. It tastes much like corn- 
bread, too. 

After we had been turned back by the mines 
on the Montello, we returned through Nervesa 
and crossed the Piave at Susegana to go down 
on the farther bank of the river. Through spec- 

310 



IN ITALY, ON THE PIAVE 



tral ruined villages and past a roadside altar, 
through Tezze and into San Polo where we 
passed a couple of pretty Italian senoritas 
carrying gay sunshades. They were a welcome 
touch of youth and color in that street of 
broken walls and hollow houses. 

Now the road became densely wooded. Fields 
were so completely covered with vegetation that 
no shell holes were visible. This devastated re- 
gion of Italy differs from France for Nature 
has here already covered many signs of war 
with knee-high vegetation. We passed the 
ruined palace of the Senator Papadopoli, a 
handsome old mansion that was in the track 
of the attack on Oct. 26, 1918, not a year ago. 

At Cimadolmo, where the American army 
fought, we entered a house and talked with the 
people. It had been a three story home but now 
only the mark of the stairways was visible on 
the walls of what was one high, barnlike room. 
Two beautiful old beds were there, a part of the 
furniture they had been able to carry with 
them when they evacuated. The quaint old fire- 
place with its huge stone hearth had not been 
harmed. In the outer passage a white owl 

311 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



blinked at us — it was the pet of the small boy 
of the family. They were getting along as best 
they could so the pretty girl and the tired old 
mother told us. 

It was between the Grave di Papadopoli and 
the left bank of the river that the Italian Tenth 
army had formed the third bridgehead, and 
breaking through the enemy's defences ex- 
tended into the Cimadolmo plain. Quoting from 
the report of the Commando Supremo of the 
Royal Italian Army on the battle of Vittorio 
Veneto from Oct, 24 to Nov. 4, 1918, on ''A 
Page of Glory ' ' and under the heading, ' ' The 
Audacious Tenth Army," this must fill you 
with pride : * ' The young and gallant 332d 
American Regiment proved its valour, vying 
in bravery with our infantry. ' ' 

At Roncadelle we stopped in front of the vil- 
lage tailor shop where twenty of the returned 
refugees came out to talk to us. They said the 
government allowed them 1 lire, 35 centimes a 
day, which is scarcely twenty cents. A girl 
stood knitting a sock with coarse yarn. She 
said she had been taken prisoner by the Aus- 
trians and kept a year, but they had not mis- 

312 



IN ITALY, ON THE PIAVE 



treated her. She did not get much to eat but 
they did not make her work. These people were 
profuse in their appreciation of the food and 
clothing the American Red Cross had given 
them. . 

At Ponto di Piave, where we again crossed 
the river, I went into the office of the military 
commander of the zone. He was not in but I 
was told they were erecting 400 rooms, place to 
house 400 people, and repairing many of the 
damaged houses. Most of the evacuated people 
had returned. In this village the work of re- 
construction was most encouraging, many new 
homes and several large buildings being in 
course of erection. An Austrian who entered 
the office said he was foreman of the building 
and that the work was going well. 

There seems to be little bitterness between 
the Austrians and the Italians — my impression 
was that they had fought it out and now were 
trying to get along. Quite a different feeling 
from that of the French and Belgians against 
the Germans. But then we heard of no civilian 
atrocities by the Austrians. They always evac- 
uated the cities in the path of a battle several 
days before an attack. 

313 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



On the way back to Treviso we passed several 
wagonloacls of bedding going toward the dev- 
astated region. Into Treviso we came, through 
the handsome old Roman gateway, and back 
to Mestre, catching the seven o'clock train for 
Venice. 

The Piave is slowly recovering from the hur- 
ricane of war that swept over its peaceful vil- 
lages. Its people are cheerful and hopeful 
in spite of the hard winter ahead. What cour- 
age they have to come back to rekindle the 
fire on the shelled old home hearth, you will say 
with me, but after all, they are home again. 
And they did so miss their Polenta during their 
evacuation, they told me. It is the staple 
food of the Italian of the North. They have 
home even if it is a broken shack and their 
polenta — and the cold winter seems very far 
away. 



314 



CHAPTER XXIII 

ON THE CARSO — AND IN TRIESTE 

Venice, Sept. 29. 

TWO Italian military police stood in the 
doorway of the railway compartment ex- 
amining passports. It was ten o 'clock Saturday 
night and we traveling toward Trieste. "Ang- 
lais? " one asked, as he reached out for mine. 
" No, I'm Americana," I answered with a 
proud toss of my head. " Essere Americana," 
(All right, be an American then) he answered 
with a short, hard laugh. Right there I ex- 
perienced my first uncomfortable feeling about 
being in Italy at this time. We had been warned 
against coming. They told me I could not ex- 
pect a people to be friendly when only the Presi- 
dent of my country stood between them and 
their beloved Fiume. Both Lloyd George and 
Clemenceau were willing that Italy should 
have Fiume. At every station along the way 
we had bought Italian papers and their head- 
lines proclaimed in two inch type that President 

315 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



Wilson was still holding out against Italy. It 
was a dynamic moment in Italy and logically it 
was no place for Americans. D'Annunzio bad 
barricaded bimself in Fiume and bad announced 
dramatically be would die tbere rather than 
give up. The Italian government was in a 
difficult position. You would expect feeling to 
run high. But it was a new sensation, this 
veiled scoff at my country. The Florentine 
couple in the compartment with us tried to 
laugh it off. They said nothing was meant — 
but the feeling remained. 

On the way to Monfalcone, which if your 
memory serves you, will recall some of the 
fiercest of Italy's battles in the world war, we 
met an Italian singer in an American Y uni- 
form. He was Umberto Sacchetti, who created 
the tenor role in "The Girl of the Golden 
West," when it was presented in America sev- 
eral years ago. He gave me another version 
of the story we had been hearing since we start- 
ed, that the American flag had been fired upon 
in Trieste. He would not admit there was any 
feeling against Americans there — claimed Fi- 
ume was a question the Italians must settle for 
themselves. 

316 



ON THE CARSO — AND IN TRIESTE 

It was Captain F. Maurice Ferrucci, an at- 
tache of the Italian Peace Delegation in Paris, 
whom I met in Venice, who was instrumental in 
getting us to the Carso. The Carso is Italy's 
great war shrine and means to Italy what Cha- 
teau Thierry and St. Mihiel do to us, what Ypres 
does to the English and what Verdun does to 
the French. The majority of the one and a 
half million sons that Italy gave to death and 
disablement when she fought the cause of the 
Allies made the sacrifice on the Carso. For 
two years, from May, 1915 to 1917, Italy stub- 
bornly clung to these rocky heights. Then 
came the great retreat that pushed them back 
to the Piave, where they again came to glorious 
victory when October gave way to November 
last year. 

After the Piave, where America sent her 
sons to help the land of Garibaldi, I knew I 
must see the Carso to visualize even casually 
the Italian phase of the war. At first it ap- 
peared inaccessible. The Italian Peace Dele- 
gation in Paris through its Chevalier Armando 
Koch, had been anxious to help me, but could 
assure me nothing. Their Lieut. Stroppa 

317 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



wired to the headquarters in Rome, but with 
no results. I was given a letter of introduction 
from the peace delegation and Captain Ferruc- 
ei in Venice added a personal note to the com- 
mando supremo of the military zone at Gorizia, 
the city nearest the famous battlefield. 

My hopes had not been high when we reached 
Monfalcone and the luncheon on the Italian 
diner, especially that heaped-high plate of end- 
less spaghetti, had not boosted them. We had 
come out from Venice on the 9 o'clock train, 
and if you had possessed a long distance tele- 
scope you might have seen Miss Bennett and 
me seated disconsolately on a stone wall at Mon- 
falcone about two o'clock that afternoon trying 
to decide whether to go to Gorizia and attempt 
to get on the Carso, or take a through train for 
Trieste. 

Monfalcone is no place to lose one's nerve. 
Tt is a wraith of a town with one street of ruins 
after another and with a force of men trying to 
repair the shell-punctured lanes and people liv- 
ing drably in what is left of their domiciles, it 
was discouraging in the hot midday Italian sun- 
shine. I had just changed my mind for the fifth 

318 



ON THE CARSO — AND IN TRIESTE 

time — with the Italian fondness for delays and 
recalling that it took me ten days to procure 
the necessary papers to get to Italy, I groaned 
that nothing less than a miracle could get us to 
the Carso within the time we had before dark 
— when along came an old, one horse buggy 
winding up the dusty road, and we hailed it for 
a sight-seeing tour. Monfalcone gives you a 
heartache. It must have been an important 
center in its day, but after the pendulum of 
war had swung back and forth over its twisting 
streets for two long years it is full of shadows 
and ruins. Of its population of 20,000 people, 
5,000 had returned. I talked with a number of 
them, both Austrians and Italians. This was 
formerly Austrian territory and now belongs to 
Italy. The girl at a postcard shop admitted 
she was Austrian, but refused to talk. At a 
fruit stand I talked German to an Austrian and 
French to an Italian. The man in the depot 
checkroom admitted he was Austrian, but was 
taciturn. It seemed impossible to get these 
people to express themselves on conditions — 
evidently they feared it was not safe to talk. 
Considerable building and repairing was going 

319 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



on, but there is still much to do to reconstruct 
Monfalcone. At 3 :30 we took the train for the 
hour's ride to Gorizia. 

We had a half hour's wait in the stately 
building that was the military headquarters. 
Then an officer came to say it would not be pos- 
sible for them to send us over the Carso, since 
they had no military cars. A charming major 
entered, saluted with a dash, and I showed him 
my credentials, asking whether he could send 
along a conducting officer if I could hire a car in 
a local garage. Miss Bennett, who is fluent in 
Italian, acted as interpreter. There was a po- 
lite exchange of compliments and he asked us to 
wait a few moments, saluted again, and hurried 
out. It was 5 :30 when his dashing young Lieut. 
Ercolani Enrico came in with beaming eyes to 
that reception room and said he had a car and 
his driver and we could make the trip in two 
hours. 

Gorizia is a large and attractive city, clean 
and orderly in the arrangement of its streets, 
with the picturesque Julian Alps like a stage 
curtain at its back. We motored out of the city 
over a road that had been swept many times by 

320 




Standing at the door of the Officers' Mess on the Carso. Miss Bennett at the right. 




Royal Italian Army Car with Italian Conducting Officer, on our trip over the Carso 
Battlefield in the Julian Alps, Italy. 



ON THE CARSO — AND IN TRIESTE 

Austrian artillery. I have ridden with military 
drivers of many lands in these last few months 
but the prize for reckless speed belongs to one, 
Soldat Massimi Constatin, C. R. A. R., who took 
us up on the Carso. I have a recollection of a 
blur of battered walls dashing past as we round- 
ed curves through San Grado, the first Austrian 
town the Italians took and which is completely 
destroyed. Through other demolished villages, 
occasionally a few people would be seen moving 
about. The place of an Italian battery was 
pointed out. Austrian artillery had been most 
active here. We passed an Italian military 
cemetery and then began the climb over a won- 
derful new road, the road the Italians had built 
straight up through the rock of these dizzying 
heights — a road that wound like a Colorado 
trail and not much wider in places, circling and 
dipping and climbing and turning. Every yard 
brought a new vision of dugouts and shelters. 
These were modern cavemen, truly, for they 
had hewn here caves in the rock such as are 
seen on no other battlefield of the war. This 
Carso is an arid, rocky mountain-side. There 
were no trees or shrubs for shelter, so the Ital- 

321 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



ians on the Carso had to hew for safety into its 
stony depths. It was incredible, until I stood 
within messrooms and kitchens on stretches of 
tableland up the mountainside. The barbed 
wire, with its cruel prongs, still formed a net- 
work over the shell-tumbled earth and where- 
ever the eye turned some new type of abri or 
shelter was disclosed. This is the most mar- 
velous battlefield of the war, and no one should 
feel he has covered the war zone until he sees it. 
You stand awed at the enormity of the under- 
taking of fortifying these Carso heights. You 
realize the tremendous sacrifice it must have 
cost to hold them. The world gasped at the 
Italian retreat — when you stand on the Carso 
you wonder how they held on for two years — 
what it must have meant to the Italian army to 
regain those nobly defended crests with the 
armistice ! 

The conducting lieutenant, with boyish en- 
thusiasm, took us to where his battery had been 
housed. The roof was off of what had been 
their mess, two rooms made out of solid rock, 
plank lined. The camouflages still hung in their 
places, hiding walls of rock, in this city of de- 

322 



ON THE OARSO — AND IN TRIESTE 

serted dugouts. We looked down upon the 
quarters of the commander, in a deep, rock- 
faced hollow, for the road we traveled wound 
far above it. Rock-lined trenches snaked in 
every direction. " This was the vestibule of 
our quarters," said the lieutenant, pointing to 
the path leading from the cave shack to the 
main road. 

Up and up the mountain heights the car 
climbed. Of the village of Loquizza, over there, 
a few broken walls are left. A heap of stones 
mark the site of another mountain village. Then 
up to Hill 380 and its observatory. One city of 
10,000 is in ruins, Castagnevizza. Over there, 
he pointed out from the final hilltop, was the 
farthest end of the line. There the Italians 
held their place from Nov. 1, 1916 to Oct. 27, 
1917. Up here the days of that round year are 
written in heroic blood. And then it was that 
they fell back to the Piave. 

Night was falling. The sun had sunk behind 
the Julian Alps and the crescent moon arose 
over a scene of desolation and memories. Shad- 
ows wavered about the abris and brooded over 
the cave shelters as we started down the twist- 

323 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



ing road, only the exhaust of the car breaking 
the stillness of the Italian summer night. 

This Carso is the sacred zone of Italy. It is 
to be kept as it is as a monument to those who 
fell defending it for Italy. Today there is no 
means of bringing tourists here, but it is hoped 
later to make it accessible. Right now Italy is 
too occupied with her internal troubles. An 
Italian officer remarked they did not approve 
of making show places of their battlenedsj they 
are too sacred. But later they hope to find 
means of conveying those who will come in rev- 
erence to this fought-for mountain top, where 
the sons of Italy gave so much to save her. 
With true Italian courtesy they refused pay for 
the car, even when I insisted on reimbursing 
them for the gasoline for I knew Italy was short 
of " petro." " Happy to be able to do it for 
you," they said. Evidently there is no feeling 
in military circles against Americans and that 
is why I was so astonished to encounter it that 
night when we left Gorizia at 9 o'clock for 
Trieste. 

The Florentine couple proved delightful. 
He is vice-president of the Italian national or- 

324 



ON THE CARSO — AND IN TRIESTE 

ganization for the invalides of the war. From 
him I learned briefly of the splendid re-educa- 
tion work of Italy for war invalides, especially 
in the schools for the blind. 

Into Trieste we came at 11:30 that night to 
find a sinister, silent throng clustered about the 
entrance to the depot, men, women and children. 
It had been rumored that d'Annunzio might 
come into Trieste at any hour and if he did it 
would be a signal for a great demonstration. 
We found' the Hotel Savoia had not received 
our telegram for rooms and was full. There 
are pleasanter things than arriving at midnight 
in a city trembling on the verge of war, and 
we were thankful that the Florentine doctor 
and his wife were with us as we drove about 
in the wheezy cab, trying to get place in a 
hotel. For a while it looked like we might have 
to spend the night in the public square, over- 
looking the beautiful Gulf of Trieste, where an 
American destroyer rode at anchor. Trieste 
is very cosmopolitan and at that moment was 
seething with people from all over the globe, 
together with many Italian soldiers. Finally 
we found rooms in a weird, little, old hotel on a 

325 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



dark, back street, where the coverlets on the 
beds resembled red tablecloths, and one win- 
dow, opening into a narrow corridor, provided 
the only ventilation. There was no milk for the 
breakfast coffee next morning and the bread 
was dark and soggy. Italy is still on war ra- 
tions. 

Trieste retains much of its aspect as an Aus- 
trian city — it has wide, clean, well-kept streets 
and differs very much from the Italian cities. 
On the streets we found people moving about 
that Sunday morning restlessly, but quiet- 
ly. In the Hotel Savoia where we lunched, 
I talked to an American Red Cross dispatch 
bearer on his way to Montenegro. He said 
Americans in Trieste were keeping very quiet 
— it did not take much to provoke trouble. 
" Don't express an opinion," he cautioned me, 
' ' you can 't know who might be near you. ' ' 
We were in the lounging room where was con- 
gregated French, English and Italian officers 
and Americans in Y and Red Cross uniforms. 
This American related his experience in the 
dining room a couple of nights previous with 
an Italian soldier and a Y man. The Y man 

326 



ON THE CARSO — AND IN TRIESTE 

had remarked jocosely, "What about Fi- 
ume! " In a moment the Italian was talking 
loudly and threateningly. The several hun- 
dred people in the room centered their atten- 
tion on that table. " I don't know what would 
have happened if the Y man had not adroitly 
changed the subject by asking the Italian about 
his war decorations — it looked like we were in 
for trouble," he said. 

I walked over to the American Y rooms in 
Trieste and learned the real facts of the flag 
story. There had been a demonstration in 
front of the Y a couple of weeks before. The 
Italians, it seems, are given to demonstrations. 
The crowd, assembled in the street below the 
windows, began to hiss, but no one had any in- 
tention of taking down Old Glory, which waves 
over the entrance. Two carabinieri appeared 
upstairs in the cozy Y assembly room and sug- 
gested that they hang out the Italian flag with 
the American. All of the Allied flags were 
placed over the doorway with the Stars and 
Stripes and the crowd dispersed. That is all 
there was to the incident, a man who had been 
there that night through it all assured me. 

327 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



Lieut. J. W. McCabe of Kentucky in charge 
of the Trieste Y, was at the chocolate and post- 
card stand at the farther end of the room when 
we entered. He told me he was in Fiume on 
Sept. 13, two weeks previous, when d'Annunzio 
had just gotten in. Fiume is a three hour motor 
trip from Trieste. He had been stopped ten 
times on the way and ordered not to go into the 
city, but he went ahead and reached Fiume safe- 
ly, where they are working with the Casa del 
Soldat Italian, the Italian Y. Last Thursday 
he had been as far as Abbiza, just outside of 
Fiume, and then had boarded the American 
flagship, the Pittsburg, which with two Ameri- 
can destroyers are at this time in the harbor 
of Fiume. The English are on their ships in 
the harbor. Only 500 French soldiers are barri- 
caded in the city of Fiume. At the Y, I also 
met the captain of the American destroyer, the 
Foote, that is lying outside here in the Gulf of 
Trieste, but of course he would say nothing. 
The wireless operator from the destroyer 
dropped in, and we talked to English and Amer- 
ican jackies. Rumors of all kinds were plenti- 
ful. 

328 



ON THE CARSO — AND IN TRIESTE 

On the streets that noon crowds of people 
were walking about reading the Fiume bulle- 
tins posted in windows. Miss Bennett and I 
hurried out of a throng when we found we were 
attracting indignant attention by speaking Eng- 
lish to each other. 

The port of Trieste is fascinating. Water- 
craft of every description lay in the blue Gulf 
of Trieste and along the shore curves a de- 
lightful promenade. Outside is the Adriatic 
Sea. The names on the business houses are 
largely Italian though there are many Aus- 
trian, and some take a middle road like the 
sign that read " Leopoldi Haas." One street in 
Trieste is peculiar. The foot passengers take 
the center pavement and the vehicles drive at 
the sides, with a two foot walk in front of the 
shops. An Austrian in a little shop I entered 
told me things were much worse there now than 
before the war and feared it would be a terrible 
winter for the people. 

I was told we might get to Fiume, but it was 
a dangerous undertaking, and if we reached 
there we might not be able to leave. So we de- 
cided to return to Venice. Taking the 5:30 

329 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



train from Trieste it was about midnight, which 
seems to be my favorite arriving hour in Italy, 
when we were being gondoliered down the 
Grand Canal, in the moonlight. The sunset 
over the Gulf of Trieste as the train wound its 
way along the picturesque shore was wonderful. 
Far down on a jutting rock was the castle of 
Maximilian, "Miramare," looking like a page 
from a fairy story book. 

In Venice 

Today I had a glimpse of the war aftermath 
in Venice. We were going through the great 
Doges Palace. The Doges were the Dukes of 
Venice, who were the presidents of the Vene- 
tian Republic, so the Doges Palace is a sort of 
ancient White House of Venice. The Doges 
ruled from 4 B. C. to 1797, the guide informed 
me. But I was most interested in the big council 
chamber, where workmen were high on scaffold- 
ing, replacing the- famous paintings which had 
all been removed to Florence for safekeeping 
when Venice was bombed. All these huge can- 
vasses, marked as they fitted into the bare wall 
spaces, were piled against the sides of the 

330 



IN VENICE 



spacious apartment. On leaving the building 
we were permitted a peep at the bronze horses 
of St. Marks, which were in a high boarded 
stall in the palace courtyard, being prepared for 
their return to their places before the great 
cathedral. These bronze horses, which date 
back to antiquity, had been removed from Ven- 
ice for safekeeping during the early days of 
the war and have only very recently been 
brought back. 

They stand on the balcony of the cathedral 
overlooking the Piazza San Marco, with its 
great Campanile, where every day at noon, at 
the stroke of twelve, the pigeons swoop down 
to be fed by the people in the square. They 
are such fat, pudgy pigeons, but no visitor to 
Venice fails to buy one or more of the wee cone 
sacks of grain that the venders at the little 
high desks at corners of the Piazza sell for the 
purpose. 

Of course here one goes through the Basilica 
of St. Marks to marvel at the mural mosaics, 
just as one stands in awe in the Doges Palace 
before the Titian fresco of St. Christopher 
carrying the child across the water. 

331 



"WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



Then a fascinating thing to do is to tea on 
the Piazza, the great square with its attractive 
shops, for it would appear as though all Venice 
and its visitors meet here at tea time in the 
little table groups outside the cafes and the 
pigeons flutter about the children who are al- 
ways feeding them. 

One incident of the Venice Hotel : An Italian 
officer approached an Austrian who was wear- 
ing a tie of the old Austrian colors, red and 
yellow. ' ' You will take off that tie, ' ' said the 
Italian officer, his jaw set. " Oh, yah," said 
the Austrian and he disappeared up the stair- 
way to return with a less inflammatory neck 
scarf. " I couldn't stand it," said the Italian 
officer to me. " If it had been the colors of the 
new Austrian Republic I should not have 
minded, but the colors of old Austria we fought 
against — think of the audacity of his wearing 
them now — and in Venice." It was what the 
French would call stupid. There are innumer- 
able Italian soldiers in Venice and they are very 
handsome in their uniforms with their pictur- 
esque hats. And so are the women in their black 
silk, long fringed, shawls. 

332 



IN VENICE 



"Americans are doing harm to both coun- 
tries," said an Italian official to me a couple 
of days ago, ' ' when they go to Italy with preju- 
dice. Like the naval officer, dismissed by Ad- 
miral Andrews after the report made by the 
American Relief Committee in Trieste, that he 
was working against the Italians. We have 
no feeling against Americans nor against Pres- 
ident Wilson," he emphasized, " we only resent 
that Mister Wilson feels Italy should not have 
Fiume. ' ' 

Italy today finds herself in the position of 
having fought against 69 millions of people and 
she has made peace with only eleven millions. 
All the others, in the small provinces into which 
the Austrian-Hungarian Empire has divided, 
are not responsible for the war, but have not 
shown themselves friendly by fighting against 
her. 

Their figures show that 120,000 Italian sol- 
diers fought in France, while 40,000 French, 
30,000 British and 4,000 American soldiers 
fought in Italy. 

Italy bore the financial drain of the war 
nobly. Besides submitting willingly to the in- 

333 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



creased burden of taxation the people re- 
sponded to every war loan, contributed to the 
various reliefs and Red Cross, all classes giv- 
ing millions upon millions. When the appeal 
was made for the collection of gold from private 
safes and jewel cases, Italian men and women 
from every province vied with one another in 
sending their treasures to feed the metal re- 
serves of the state, much as the old Romans 
did during the Punic wars. 
Tonight to Rome ! 



334 



CHAPTER XXIV 

IN ROME PASSPOET WORRIES 

Oct. 3. 

WHEN in Rome I had always intended to 
" do as the Romans do." Instead, I did 
as all good Americans do. I " Followed the 
Man from Cook's." It may have been the 
fault of the Sirocco — the hot winds that sweep 
in from the sea on which one blames every dif- 
ficulty in Italy, much as we blame the ground- 
hog, in season, when our plans go aglee. It 
happened thusly : 

" I hope," said Miss Bennett, raising her 
English eyebrows in disgust, "I hope you 
don't expect to see Rome in a day and a half! " 

" You never traveled with an American cor- 
respondent before, did you? Ho, hum, I ex- 
pect to have time to do some shopping in 
Rome, ' ' I had replied, airily. But I had figured 
without a few vital forces, such as railroads and 
governments. 

We had a good running start out of Venice 
335 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



Tuesday night in the rain. About two o'clock 
in the morning I awakened with a jolt of the 
train and a feeling of being out in space. It 
was a derailed carriage that kept us somewhere 
on the landscape, halfway to Florence, for six 
hours and brought us to Rome thirteen hours 
late. 

There was compensation, however, in going 
through picturesque Tuscany at eventide, where 
the wonderful vineyards of Italy stretch for 
miles at either side, the vines heavily laden 
with golden grapes, garlanded from one tree 
to another in symmetrical rows. It resembled 
the Louis xvi decorations, only in the center 
of the festooned vines there was always a small 
graceful tree. And in the background the 
shadowy Appenines were turned to purples in 
the sunset. 

I had always fondly pictured myself standing 
in the gateway of the Eternal City, gazing in 
awe, as I murmured under my breath, "And 
THIS is Rome, that sat on her seven hills and 
from her throne of beauty ruled the world ! ' ' 

It is what one would expect to do. 

But instead of noon, Wednesday, it was an 
336 



IN ROME — PASSPORT WORRIES 

hour past midnight when we trudged wearily 
behind our baggage-hung, burly porter, across 
the great Naiad fountain-centered square to the 
Grand Hotel. And one third of my day and a 
half in Eome was gone. 

The next morning will always be unforget- 
table. It started out so beautifully. The hotel 
must have been a made-over palace for its mar- 
ble stairways were so wide eight people might 
have easily ascended abreast and our room was 
so large you could have turned a dray in it 
without marring the white Louis Seize furni- 
ture. I was hardly up when three telegrams 
were brought to me. One was a cable from 
home and one that we had secured reservations 
on the Rome-Paris express for the next morn- 
ing. All was right in the world ! I waved the 
telegrams gleefully. " Here's where we have 
a real Roman holiday," I remember to have 
said. 

It was while buying the railway tickets an 
hour later that someone dropped the word 
' ' Passports. ' ' Oh yes, we had attended to them 
before leaving Paris. But hadn't they been 
visaed in Italy for the return to France? With 

337 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



a sinking heart I learned it was imperative to 
have the visaes of the French, the American 
and the British consulates and the Italian pre- 
fecture of police. And some well meaning by- 
stander added: " It always takes two days at 
the Italian police, they have just made a new 
rule. You might try tipping freely. " " Why, 
I'd tip the statue of Marcus Aurelius to get 
through," I moaned. I hope you are keeping 
in mind that this was my one precious day in 
Rome. 

To the French Consulate we sped, saying 
"Presto! Presto!" to the old cabman. The 
French consulate is in the former Palace Far- 
nese, to which I will refer later. There a kindly, 
doddering old clerk listened while Miss Bennett 
talked Italian and I English, simultaneously, 
and tucked our passports into a nice big drawer. 
We implored him to take our credentials to the 
consul. It was twelve o 'clock when we emerged 
from there with the visa for France. 

All business ceases in Rome from then until 
three in the afternoon we found, for those are 
the siesta hours. There was no use trying to go 
sightseeing because we might not get back in 

338 



IN ROME — PASSPORT WORRIES 

time. At exactly three we stood in the Amer- 
ican consulate. The man at the desk looked at 
us strangely. "And you say you have no per- 
messo and you have been in Italy for a week? 
Don't you know you should have reported to 
the police before you were in the country twen- 
ty-four hours ! ' ' No one had told us. My sug- 
gestion that he write a note to the Italian pre- 
fecture of police explaining for us did not meet 
his approval. He did not like notes telling 
them what to do, so would not ask favors of the 
Italian office. He was furthermore a ' ' press 
agent for a hard winter," remarking that he 
did not believe it possible for us to get the 
Italian visa in time to take our train the follow- 
ing day. He put the American visa on my pass- 
port with much commiseration. 

At the British consulate our case was too 
complicated for the clerk and he took us to the 
private office of the consul who became much 
agitated about us. It appears it was a grave 
matter that we had no " permesso," which is 
the permission to remain in a country — your 
passport is only the right to go in. So, offi- 
cially, we were not in Italy — how could we ex- 

339 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



pect to leave! It was dizzying, but I began to 
see. Then Miss Bennett had no photograph 
with her and a photograph must always accom- 
pany the application for the visa. That and 
your age are vital. The British consul was ex- 
ceedingly kind and wrote us a letter to the Ital- 
ian prefecture asking him to excuse our not hav- 
ing a permesso and that Miss Bennett had no 
photograph. 

As the wheezy, creaky cab lumbered up the 
cobbled hill street to the office of the Italian 
police, I just pressed my rabbit's foot against 
my heart and pra} r cd. I tried to think that up 
this street the chariot of Messala must have 
rolled and I tried to imagine Mark Antony 
driving his chariot past us, his toga flying in 
the wind. But it was no use. The present was 
too harrowing. 

We agreed to say nothing at the Italian of- 
fice about our lack of permesso until we were 
asked. I had heard it was best to let the other 
fellow do the talking, sometimes. It was a large 
room with a row of clerks at one long table at 
the right. We walked up to the first and silently 



340 



IN ROME — PASSPORT WORRIES 

handed him our passports. He opened his 
mouth and uttered one word. 

" Permesso." 

I laid down my credentials, a letter from our 
U. S. Acting Secretary of State and one from 
the Italian Peace Delegation in Paris and Miss 
Bennett handed over a personal letter from 
Lady Derby, the British ambassadress in Paris, 
for whom she is private secretary. The pass- 
port clerk smiled, reached for a pink blank and 
in very good English asked, " Where were you 
born? " 

" Chicago, Illinois," I answered. 

" I have been there," he said. 

" Then perhaps you can understand what it 
means to me to have one day in Rome and to 
spend it in having my passport visaed. It is up 
to you whether I see anything of this wonderful 
city of yours at all, because I must catch the 
morning express to Paris in order to make the 
steamer for home." " I'll do what I can," he 
said, and he did. History to the contrary, not- 
withstanding, I felt he was * ' the noblest Roman 
of them all." In less than an hour we had the 
official stamp of the Italian police. 

341 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



The K. C. man whom we had met in the 
Italian office descended the steps with us. ' ' You 
ought not to leave Rome without seeing the 
Pope," he urged. He had had an audience that 
morning. " I hope to come back some day for 
that," I said. 

It was five o'clock when we jumped into the 
cab and begged the driver to " Presto a chez 
Cook." Neither the ancient nor the modern 
Romans hurried so it was 5 :30 on the clock in 
Cook's tourist agency when I burst in and 
gasped for the motor car and the English speak- 
ing guide, whom we had ordered that morning. 
My day in Rome had dwindled to two hours, all 
there would be left of daylight. 

In a couple of minutes we were seated in a 
limousine going up the Via Nazionale, or Na- 
tional street, hill on high, with a very fat and 
very hot Italian guide holding a white knobbed 
cane, on the seat in front of us, saying ' ' Yunga 
leddies, Roma is a city whata is builta on seven 
hillas." 

First to the Quirinale, the residence of the 
king and queen, and then to get a view of the 
Senate house where only the day before, so the 

342 



IN ROME — PASSPORT WORRIES 

papers declared, statesmen had come to blows 
over the Fiume matter. 

And then to St. Peter's Cathedral. I know 
a charming woman who boasts she did the 
Smithsonian Institute in twenty minutes. We 
could not have had more in St. Peter's. Imag- 
ine trying to see the art of centuries in twenty 
minutes ! 

" This is the longest cathedrala in the worlda, 
younga leddies," began the guide, mopping his 
perspiring brow. " You see-ah that marble 
children acrossa there? — you thinka that 
smaller than this one? No, it justa the same- 
ah. Now, looka, that dove-ah over there — 
what you thinka, younga leddies f You thinka I 
can reacha the dove 's head — come on, I showa 
you — see, I cannot toucha it." 

" What is this, a measuring game we are 
playing," I asked Miss Bennett. I had stopped 
in front of the tomb with the two lions, one 
sleeping and the other aroused; they almost 
seemed alive. I tried not to listen to the guide 's 
description — so I don't know whether there is 
any difference in the length of those lions' tails. 
A peasant woman with her shawl over her head 

343 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



walked down the huge, silent, high-pillared 
cathedral and lifted the little child in her arms 
to let it kiss the toe of St. Peter. 

The guide, in a slow monotone, was droning 
off the names of the celebrities who slept in the 
various tombs. He knew the year each one was 
born. He might have gotten passports for any 
one of them. 

Hesitating before a huge marble group I won- 
dered why it was partly covered with a red 
cloth. Then I saw the cloth was of marble, so 
marvelously wrought that you wanted to touch 
it to be assured it was not a woven fabric. The 
guide was saying ' ' Younga leddies, there are 
5,280 pieces of marble-ah in this cloth, all 
joinded together." And the magnificent altar 
where the popes of former years were crowned ! 
And the bas reliefs ! Such treasures of beauty 
and with only twenty minutes to absorb them 
— and every little while that droning voice of 
the guide broke in with " Well, younga leddies, 
what you thinka of it? " 

But we had to get to the Roman Forum. So 
reluctantly I came out the wonderful bronze 
doors to stand impressed to silence on the great 

344 



IN ROME — PASSPORT WORRIES 

porch of the church and view the facade with 
its magnificent statues and let my eyes sweep 
across the great Piazza de San Pietro, in the 
center of which rises the obelisk Caligula 
brought from Heliopolis. 

Back in the Adams school in Ottumwa I first 
learned to know the Roman Forum. It was the 
favorite page in my reader, the one that began 
"Friends, Romans, Countrymen." "Now 
where did Mark Antony stand? " I asked the 
guide, as he stopped the car at a stone wall 
overlooking a hollow of ruins. He pointed out 
a group of upright columns on a platform. In 
the twilight of the Roman day it was not diffi- 
cult to conjure up the heroic figure, as my imagi- 
nation had painted him at thirteen, and to hear 
those ringing words, " I come to bury Caesar, 
not to praise him." 

Out on the promenade along the Tiber, oppo- 
site the palatial, modern Palace of Justice I got 
out of the car to get a better view of the river. 
What was it one should think of when stand- 
ing on the historic banks of the Tiber? I was 
wondering if there was anything else that 
should be on my passport. But the voice of the 

345 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



Man from Cook's broke in at my elbow, 
' ' Younga leddy, you see that over there is the 
Castle St. Angelo and that golden angela on 
topa — ' ' He was pointing to the building, once 
a fortress, high on which is poised the statue 
of the angel, the legendary apparition to 
Gregory i of the angel who delivered the city 
from a terrible plague. I was turning a film in 
my kodak then so I can't recollect now the 
height of that angel. 

On the top of Janiculan hill, before the high 
equestrian monument of Garibaldi, and I had 
a glorious view of the city of Eome. And then 
down through winding streets and to the Coli- 
seum. The ruins of the Coliseum are a moving 
sight. The vast arena around which could be 
seated 50,000 people saw some of the greatest 
of tragedies. And with the shadows of night 
falling over it I did not need the sonorous voice 
of the guide pointing out where the lions came 
up and where their victims knelt to get the 
shivers of reality. 

That night at dinner the plates were inscribed 
with the words " Tous chemin mene a Rome " 
(All roads lead to Rome). The old adage says 

346 



IN ROME — PASSPORT WORRIES 

nothing about getting out of Rome — perhaps 
it wasn't always thus. 

We finished off the day by going to the Na- 
tional theater to see the opening production of 
11 La Tosca." Now the opera of La Tosca, you 
will remember, has a one woman and two men 
plot and the scene is laid in Rome. One of the 
men is Scarpia, the chief of police of Rome, who 
is also in love with La Tosca, the singer. The 
big scene takes place in a room in the Palace 
Farnese, where we got the French visa, you 
will recall, and where La Tosca tries to induce 
Scarpia to give her a passport for herself and 
her lover so they may leave Rome. And I knew 
just how she felt when he wouldn't. Puccini is 
a great realist I am convinced. If you doubt it, 
go through the passport worries I did and you 
won't blame him for the vivid tenseness of the 
music when La Tosca stabs Scarpia with a 'fruit 
knife, and you won't blame La Tosca. 

In the final scene where the firing squad 
shoots Mario, the lover of La Tosca, the prop- 
erty man forgot to load the guns and there was 
nothing but a faint click or two and the hero 
was several seconds late in making his fall. The 

347 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



audience broke into laughter and hisses. It is 
perfectly proper to hiss if you do not like the 
work of an actor or singer in Italy, I under- 
stand, which after all is better than clapping 
and then going home and knocking to the neigh- 
bors. The audience was thoroughly Italian, 
though a group of American Red Cross and Y 
workers was near us. As we were going back 
to the hotel in the crowded tram car at midnight 
I murmured, " You don't suppose Puccini knew 
we were going to have passport troubles in 
Rome ? " ' ' Why, Puccini wrote that opera 
twenty years ago," scoffed Miss Bennett. 

It was the next day on the train that she ap- 
peared in the doorway of the compartment and 
exclaimed dramatically as we were steaming 
out of Pisa, * ' Younga leddy, you see-ah that 
leaning tower of Pisa — how higha you thinka 
it is? " I turned from the marvel of the lean- 
ing tower. 

' ' You remember that morning on the way to 
Florence when you got out of the train at 
Bologna and I found you in the station eating 
Boulogna sausage, because you said it was in- 
vented there, and drinking tea, and then we 

348 



ENROUTE BACK TO PARIS 



couldn't find our train 1 ? Well, we Americans 
may have to know dimensions to understand, 
but we wouldn't lose a train to eat Boulogna in 
Bologna," I said. 

" Oh, I didn't take the risk for the sausage," 
she returned. " I had to have tea for break- 
fast." 

Through Civita Vecchia, the port of Rome 
(and through which La Tosca had planned to 
flee with her lover) and we came along the 
Mediterranean, the rain turning the blue of the 
sea to cloudy greens that darkened into purples 
against the grey skies on the horizon. It is a 
beautiful coast line. Once it was a castle far 
down on the rocks and often just groups of sea- 
side houses that filled the changing morning 
panorama. Frequently we passed great mar- 
ble plants, for this is the famous marble region 
of Italy. Then we came through a mountainous 
country with charming little villages perched 
on distant high mountain tops. Then into the 
big port of Livourne. 

After leaving Pisa we skirted the shore of the 
lovely Gulf of Genoa. Here the train goes 
through countless small tunnels, bursting out 

349 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



into the sunlight to give a marvelous peep over 
the blue waters only to dash into the darkness 
of the hills again. These tantalizing glimpses 
of the Gulf of Genoa continued for hours until 
we passed the city of Genoa. 

The tunnels finally became nerve racking for 
there was no light in the train. And though this 
was the initial trip of the train de luxe, the 
service of which had been discontinued some 
time ago, we were made conscious of Italy's 
coal shortage. There was no light in the car 
excepting candles and we had a very small one, 
giving only a gleaming pinpoint of light in the 
wall bracket. Every rush of air made it blaze 
close to our coats in the tiny compartment or 
threatened to extinguish it. There was only gas 
enough in the carriage for the coming of the 
duane or customs officials at midnight, we were 
told, and it must be saved for them. 

A young Italian officer who was with the 
official train that took Gen. Pershing through 
Italy told me the American commander-in-chief 
had expressed surprise that a station at which 
his train halted in the early morning had been so 
quiet. " Don't you know why it is so quiet, 

350 



ENROUTE BACK TO PARIS 



General? " he had asked. " Because few trains 
are moving — we are very short of coal." And 
when Gen. Pershing returned to France he took 
steps to personally have the coal used by his 
special train returned to Italy. Italy, however, 
gallantly refused it, but the thoughtfulness of 
the American commander-in-chief pleased the 
Italian government officials. 

On the train were a number of Russians. One 
man and his wife — she wore the Red Cross in- 
signia and several war decorations — said they 
had been on their way four weeks and were 
enroute to England. Their opinion was the 
loyal Russians would be in control of their coun- 
try in a month. 

At the chill hour of two in the morning all 
passengers were aroused and told they must 
get out of the train for it was Modane, the 
frontier town. Here we were obliged to take 
out our baggage, carry it across tracks and into 
a depot where it was inspected and passports 
examined. After the inspection of our suit- 
cases and my typewriter we stood in line a long 
time in the dingy station until we were admitted 
to an inner office where our passports were 

351 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



looked over carefully and files consulted. " Ou 
allez vous? A Paris? " the big official in the 
military ulster asked me. 

"A Paris," I answered thankfully. 

"You don't suppose, do you," began Miss 
Bennett, as we were trying to locate our train 
from the dark platform, " that we might be 
going through Switzerland and will need a 
Swiss visa? " — I leave you to guess my answer. 

Some day I am going back to Rome when 
the League of Nations makes passports unneces- 
sary. Then I hope to see more of this city of 
fountains and churches and to browse over its 
seven hills. The reason I know I shall return 
is because if you throw a coin into a certain 
beautiful fountain in Rome you are destined to 
come back. So the guide from Cook's solemnly 
assured me. 

And I tossed in the coin. 



352 



T 



CHAPTER XXV 

A NEW CULT AND AN OLD QUAKTER 

Oct. 6. 
HE other day I delved into Old Paris. 



There are certain things everyone does 
today who comes to know the colorful modern 
life of this most metropolitan city on earth. 
You tea at the Ritz, which is the Waldorf- 
Blackstone of Paris, and where every day at 
five fashion and chivalry meet at little tea tables 
in a long, lofty room and its enclosed garden 
to " see and be seen." And where during these 
post-war days the uniforms of every nation 
add a brilliant dash, and the man who does 
not wear a Croix de Guerre or the Legion of 
Honor ribbon looks like a rank outsider. You 
dine at the Pre-Catelan, out by that wonderful 
miniature forest, the Bois de Boulogne, and 
which corresponds to our country club. You go 
to the Longchamps for the races, the Grand 
Prix, just as we go to the ball park for a big 
league game. But to the minds of those who 

353 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



have known Paris only through books you have 
never really seen Paris until you have dined in 
the Latin Quarter. 

Now in Paris you speak of your quarter just 
as we Americans refer to our neighborhood, say 
Harlem or Brady Hill. And, of course, if you 
remember your Victor Hugo you long to saun- 
ter through the quaint byways of the old stu- 
dent quarter — rich in its memories — little 
streets made real to us through centuries of 
famous writers, the scenes of the early struggles 
of countless artists, where they have worked 
and striven and starved. Once the dream-goal 
of every aspiring genius, his first step on the 
road to fame — there where the art of a world 
budded and flowered. 

Parisians tell you the picturesque Quartier 
Latin has long since disappeared. That now 
its residents eat three square meals a day, like 
the rest of humanity. And that where you 
really ought to go is to the Tomb of Napoleon 
or Fontainbleau. But when the mother of a 
Paris girl friend, who lived many years in New 
York, sent mea" petit bleu " saying, "I want 
to take you to call upon the most interesting 

354 



A NEW CULT AND AN OLD QUARTER 

woman in Paris and then you and my daughter 
and I will dine in a queer little restaurant in 
the Quartier Latin," I accepted " toot sweet." 

She took me to see Madame Celine Renooz, 
who calls herself a philosophic scientist, the 
author of ' ' La Nouvelle Science, ' ' a synthetic 
series of works on the Laws of Nature. Mme. 
Renooz is one of the newest of New Women, 
since she believes that woman will redeem the 
world. She disputes the Darwinian theory and 
says she has proved that animal life had its 
origin in vegetables. As is the lot of all pio- 
neers in a new science the world has been slow 
to recognize the truth of her theories. She has 
expended her fortune in the publication of her 
works and now lives in a little three-room apart- 
ment on the top floor of an old building in a 
narrow street beyond the Trocadero. The 
Trocadero is the palace museum near the Eiffel 
Tower. 

The entrance to Mme. Renooz 's home was next 
to a green-grocer's stall in a street of little 
shops. We entered a small door, emerging into 
a dim courtyard and then climbed up and up 
the darkest of winding steps. Six flights we 

355 



WITHIN TPIE YEAR AFTER 



climbed and it gave me a ' ' woozy ' ' feeling, the 
mysterious silence and the dark. 

The oldest woman I ever saw opened the door. 
And we were ushered into a shabby room, 
crowded with quaint, ages-old furniture and pic- 
tures, and in which the dominating thing was a 
long table, heaped with neatly piled books and 
manuscripts. An old-fashioned desk caught the 
light from one window. 

Then She came in — a little, aristocratic, old 
woman of probably eighty with keen, starry, 
eyes and a soft voice. She fitted so well into the 
picture of that room; you forgot its shabbi- 
ness and saw only her. She was in some long, 
flowing, robe of soft black silk, with ruffles that 
fell over the hands and down the front and a 
bit of cobwebby white lace at the throat. These 
Frenchwomen have a trick of seeming part of 
their clothes. She held my hand and welcomed 
me with such gentle courtesy that I even forgot 
the dark stairway and the steep climb. 

Then over the tea table in the narrow adjoin- 
ing room, where she poured from a silver teapot 
that would have set any antiquity hunter 's heart 
pittypattying with envy, she told of her strug- 

356 



A NEW CULT AND AN OLD QUARTER 

gles for the recognition of her science. It had 
been an inspiration, she said. Her first book 
was published in 1882. Today, she claimed, 
many of her theories are being advanced by 
prominent educators who take the credit for her 
discoveries. Because she is a woman, she in- 
sists, she is refused recognition. 

I was much interested in her theory that the 
origin of the species is vegetable and when I 
murmured to Mrs. G. (who acted as interpreter 
when I could not understand), did she suppose 
I might have once been a potato, she threatened 
to take me away. However, Mine. Renooz be- 
lieves and claims her science proves that hu- 
manity sprang from trees, and, after all, that 
is a happier thought than Darwin's. But it 
reminds me of all those mutilated young or- 
chards I saw in the Aisne region, which had 
been hacked down by the Germans in their 
retreat. 

Mme. Renooz inquired on what phase of Euro- 
pean life I was writing and I answered on the 
reconstruction following the war. Touching her 
forehead significantly, she said : ' ' The world 
needs reconstruction here, in thought, since the 
war — do you not think so? " 

357 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



She believes firmly that ' ' woman will retake 
her place at the summit of human evolution." 
Asking about the feminist movement in Amer- 
ica she wanted to know if Americans were given 
to taking up new ideas. 

From a translation of her theory on men and 
women, culled from Frances Swiney's book, 
" The Ancient Eoad, or The Development of 
the Soul," which she handed me, I quote : 

" The social convulsions predicted by the 
Apocalypse are becoming a reality. But it is 
not a revolution, it is a peaceful evolution which 
is going to change the world. This will come, 
not through the policy of old governments, nor 
by the dynamite of anarchists, nor by the 
science of the Darwinists, but from a force more 
powerful than all these, from the word of Truth, 
which succors and reanimates the souls, from 
the word of Woman, which will vibrate in the 
consciences of men. It is from her will come 
the True Science which will give the world a 
new faith." 

Mme. Renooz has translated the Bible from 
the original and does not agree with much of it. 
Her 's is distinctly a new cult, the cult of woman. 

358 



A NEW CULT AND AN OLD QUARTER 

She gave a series of lectures recently in one of 
the leading Paris hotels and evidently she has 
many people interested and numerous followers. 
Her latest recruits, I understand, are a group of 
working girls. They are raising funds to pub- 
lish another of her books. Mme. Renooz told 
me she had lost her husband and four children. 
Since then her life has been devoted entirely to 
her science. 

When we arose to go I asked why she did not 
come to America. She shook her head and, with 
a wistful smile, answered, "I am too old." 
Looking back at this charming little gentle- 
woman standing in the center of that quaint old 
room, I wondered if it were not the penalty of 
all modern idealists, to suffer skepticism and 
neglect until their hour comes. I could not 
grasp all her complicated science in the short 
visit of an hour, but I found Mme. Renooz a 
fascinating, loveable little woman. 

The trip from the new cult to the old Latin 
Quarter did not take long though they were at 
opposite ends of the city. The restaurant where 
the remainder of the party waited was in the 
Montparnasse, which is on the other side of the 

359 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



Seine, — the Left Bank, it is called. There in 
the shadow of a vine-latticed retreat, that en- 
closed the chair-circled tables on the sidewalk, 
so one missed not a minute of the street life, 
we had dinner. 

In France when one dines they always dine 
from hors d'ceuvre and soup to coffee in a 
course meal, whether in a cheap cafe or in an 
expensive one. The head waiter in my hotel 
takes it as a personal slight when I refuse to 
take soup. Often it is easier to eat soup than 
to argue about it. The menu at this little Latin 
Quarter restaurant was surprisingly good for 
the price, for the cost of living is at high tide in 
Paris today. There was delicious fish and meat, 
and a vegetable course, as always in France 
served extra, and of course always cheese, des- 
sert and fragrant black coffee. 

The people around us were not rollicking stu- 
dents, but quiet mannered French couples and 
one party of Americans. Near the latter the big 
glass window into the restaurant proper, rather 
the winter restaurant, since everyone sits out- 
side in summer, had a strip of what looked like 
giant courtplaster zigzagging diagonally across 

360 



A NEW CULT AND AN OLD QUARTER 

it. ' ' That is from one of the Big Bertha shells 
that crashed into Paris," they told me. Much 
damage had been done in this neighborhood. 

A Reel Cross man from Pittsburg, a friend of 
the hostess, joined us from another table to say 
he was leaving in a day or two for Budapest. 
A party of Red Cross men were going there in 
a box car — it would take them several weeks. 
The Red Cross has done and is still doing such 
magnificent work over here and seems to get 
but little of its well deserved publicity. Sud- 
denly someone asked why I did not write on the 
A. W. 0. L. And this is the story I was told. 
A party of fifteen American doughboys who had 
gone A. W. 0. L. (absent without leave) had 
organized themselves into a gang of bandits and 
for weeks had terrorized villages in the Vosges 
region. There are two classes of deserters, the 
narrator explained, the one that goes A. W. 0. 
L. for a few days, then returns and takes his 
medicine, and the other, the hardened mis- 
creant. The draft caught many men who were 
known crooks and it was said to be a gang of 
these who leagued themselves together for the 
depredations in the Vosges mountains. They 

361 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



chose a leader, who called himself Lieut. Smith, 
and staged a series of daring holdups in villages 
near Neufchateau. Their leader, in an Amer- 
ican uniform, said to have been stolen from a Y 
man, came into town wearing the various official 
insignia and several wound stripes. He ran up 
a hotel bill of over seven hundred francs. The 
whole gang has been captured now. But can 
you imagine what their Wild West holdups 
meant to one of those simple little villages in 
the Vosges mountains? And it is always " those 
Americans," though it is slowly seeping 
through the Old World consciousness since the 
war that all Americans are not alike. 

We discussed Madame Renooz's theory there 
in the little Montparnasse restaurant. She be- 
lieves evolution will come peacefully. At my 
right was the mended glass window. And the 
Red Cross man expected orders to leave the 
next day, because they are needed at once in 
Budapest. 



362 



CHAPTER XXVI 

GETTING THROUGH TO BERLIN 

Paris, Oct. 20. 

I CAME back last night from Berlin — with 
a headache. And it was not all due to sit- 
ting up three successive nights in bitter cold 
German trains, the only alternative, since one 
lone ' ' Pullman ' ' is all the daily train to Ber- 
lin carries and every berth in it had been re- 
served weeks before — for four days we did not 
get our clothes off — it had been impossible to 
get a room in a Berlin hotel even for the day. 
I came back with such a confusion of impres- 
sions that I can only write of what I encoun- 
tered. 

I did not find Berlin gay. Nor did I find 
Berlin starving. There was apparently plenty 
of food in the hotels and restaurants we entered 
and while prices are high, they are not as 
high as prices in Paris. There is great lack of 
milk for the children and old people. Butter 
is 23 marks a pound. Unter den Linden was 

363 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



dreary in the chill October day. Walking its 
length I saw few happy faces, countless worn, 
pasty ones, pallor due to lack of fats in food. 
I listened to many opinions of present con- 
ditions from the delightful optimism of the 
cultured German with a long Germanic title, 
for whom I had been given a card of introduc- 
tion, to the pessimism of the managing editor of 
the Berliner Tagesblatt, whom I interrupted at 
the strenuous hour of going to press. 

In my four days in Germany I talked with 
business and professional men, to the society 
woman and the peasant woman, to hotel clerks 
and porters, the wardrobe girl, elevator men 
and baggage carriers. Strangely enough, it was 
the bent old man in overalls who carried our 
baggage to the train at Wiesbaden and waited 
twenty minutes to place it in the compartment, 
who made the situation clearest to me. ' ' Vor 
den Krieg war alles so schoen " (Before the war 
everything was so fine). " Now there is nothing. 
It is worse with us now than during the war," 
he said. " There is no head. Everyone does as 
he pleases. Nothing but strikes. People don't 
want to work any more. Potatoes are so high. 
There are plenty, but our farmers are holding 

364 



GETTING THROUGH TO BERLIN 

them for fabulous prices. There is no higher 
authority to compel them to sell the potatoes to 
the poor. Money there is plenty but it is worth 
so little (the mark that day was worth four or 
five cents, it had been 25 cents). Oh, yes, we 
have better food since the French occupation. 
Now we get meat once a week." 

" Only once a week 1 ? " I asked. 

" Oh, yes," he replied, " but every week, on 
Saturdays. ' ' 

I had been advised not to go to Berlin. I 
had been told in confidence by an American, 
just returned from there and who was in a posi- 
tion to know, that a revolution was expected 
within a couple of weeks, and if I intended to go 
I had best go quickly and get away. I had been 
assured that we would get nothing to eat ; that 
it cost 300 marks for a meal and not much of a 
meal at that. So we took along biscuits and 
chocolate, together with soap, for we had heard 
that soap bought more than money. These with 
an out-of-date Baedacker and a handbook of 
German sentences, belonging to Miss Bennett, 
the English girl who accompanied me, com- 
prised the larger part of our baggage. We 

365 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



were agreeably disappointed to find little need 
of any of them. 

In Frankfort-a-Main we almost turned back. 
The Frankfort papers blazoned with headlines 
depicting the acute strike situation in Berlin, 
saying that all city traffic was suspended and 
predicting dire consequences. 

"It is foolhardy, two girls going alone to 
Berlin, under such conditions," announced Miss 
Bennett, who I forgot to mention is very sen- 
sible. "I'm going down to the office and ask 
someone's advice." 

And she did. 

While I snuggled under the fat German 
featherbed (we were in the Hotel Carlton) and 
tried to spell out the headlines in the Berliner 
Anzeiger. The one word I could not translate 
evidently was the key word. So I gave it up and 
decided then and there I would go to Berlin, if 
I went alone. 

To begin at the beginning. We arrived at 
Mayence, the French bridgehead, Wednesday 
noon after the all night ride from Paris. I 
carried a letter from the Ministere des Affaires 
Etrangere in Paris to the French general com- 

366 



GETTING THROUGH TO BERLIN 

manding the forces at Mayence asking his aid 
to get us to the unoccupied region. His head- 
quarters is the former palace of the Grand Duke 
of Hesse, a palatial old pile, where we waited 
in an enormous salon, with a grand piano and 
many red velvet upholstered chairs, gazing at 
the large paintings in vivid colors that filled the 
wall spaces. The commandant general was 
away and finally a French major saw us and 
sent us to the passport bureau at the Palace of 
Justice. He said it would also be necessary for 
us to obtain a passport visae from the head of 
the German civil authorities in Frankfort. 
Things were getting complicated again. At 
the Mayence passport bureau we were taken 
past a long waiting line and our passports and 
identity cards visaed. " You must get author- 
ity to go farther in Frankfort," we were told. 

We had lunch in a small hotel across from the 
depot. The meat was good but the bread was 
dark and soggy. The waiter said they had no 
milk for the coffee — they had to give their cows 
to Belgium. 

"We caught the 4 :55 train to Frankfort reach- 
ing there at 7 o 'clock. There was no gas in the 

367 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



carriage and most of the trip was in total dark- 
ness. At Goldstein, the limit of the French 
occupation, the man who came to inspect our 
passports held up a lantern; then as the train 
was moving took it for granted they were all 
right and jumped off. At Goldstein the time 
changes, for it is French time there and German 
time in Frankfort, a few miles farther on. There 
was a ten o'clock train to Berlin that night, 
which we might easily have taken, had we had 
the visa of the German civil commissariat. We 
discussed going without and gave up the idea. 
Their office would not be open until next morn- 
ing. So we waited twenty-four hours in Frank- 
fort to get this permission. And no one asked 
to see our passports during the remainder of the 
journey, is the aggravating fact. 

We found the hotels of Frankfort crowded. 
The Frankforter Hof phoned to another hotel 
for us but in vain. We drove in a one horse 
vehicle back through the dark rainy streets to a 
hotel opposite the depot. There we obtained a 
room for twenty-four hours. I asked why 
Frankfort was so crowded and the man at the 
desk said many Germans of Alsace-Lorraine 

368 



GETTING THROUGH TO BERLIN 

and the occupied regions had preferred to come 
back to Frankfort, in order to be outside the 
French zone of occupation. Then an interna- 
tional industrial exhibition or messe had just 
closed. 

Our room was large and comfortable, but 
instead of sheets on the beds we found table- 
cloths, of lovely flowered damask, and the pillow 
cases were made of two large damask napkins. 
The towel — only one apiece, was a part of a 
worn tablecloth. The room was warm with 
steam heat, a surprise since Paris hotels are 
not yet heated. At dinner in the handsome 
dining room the tables had paper cloths and 
paper napkins. It was evidence of the German 
conservation that we had noticed first in the 
German trains, where the curtains had all been 
removed and even the leather straps that low- 
ered the windows were replaced by straps of 
a coarse cord. 

The menu required bread and meat cards 
and we told the waiter we had neither. Evi- 
dently it did not matter for we were given both. 
Our waiter spoke English, having been interned 
in England. He said the people of Frankfort 

369 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



had suffered much during the war. The people 
still ate a dark bread but the hotels were able 
to get some white rolls. He said they were only 
supposed to have meat twice a week, but the 
hotels had it daily. Once in a while the inspec- 
tors swooped down on them and took it away. 
" Oh, then we have to stock up again," he 
smiled. 

The elevator man told me he had fought in 
Russia where he had been made a prisoner. He 
had escaped from the Russian prison and after 
rejoining his regiment was given leave to come 
home and later was stationed in Northern 
France. He had been gassed but never wounded 
in all that varied experience. 

At the office of the civil commissariat the next 
morning it looked dubious whether we could go 
farther. Only 15% of the people asking to 
travel in Germany now are allowed to go on 
account of the coal shortage permitting few 
trains I was told. After showing the cable from 
The Lee Syndicate authorizing me to go, my let- 
ter from the French ministry in Paris, my letter 
from the State Department signed by Hon. 
Frank L. Polk, my passport, my identity card, 

370 



GETTING THROUGH TO BERLIN 

a photograph and a calling card, the two latter 
being pasted on the application for the visa 
together with the letter from the French min- 
istry, the visa was, after much conversation, 
made out. 

" You remember," said Miss Bennett, as we 
were leaving, " the man in the passport bureau 
at Frankfort remarked he ought to have made 
us sign a paper saying they would not be re- 
sponsible for anything that happened to us." 
It certainly looked like the " jump off place." 

There was no train for Berlin until 9 :46 that 
night, so we sauntered down the street, drop- 
ping into shops. Clothes of all kinds were very 
high, even with the marks translated into dol- 
lars. It was a small cafe we entered, and as it 
was only shortly after eleven the old waiter, 
who looked like he might have been an aristo- 
crat of other days, had time to talk to us. 
' ' Everything was splendid here before the war, 
and now everything is gone. And it will be 
much worse this winter," he said. A German 
soldier in the faded uniform hobbled in, drag- 
ging one leg stiffly and with one arm limp. He 
was selling pencils from a supply dfsplayed in 

371 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



the cuff of his sleeve. On the street we had 
passed a soldier, shaking from shell shock, 
begging. 

The tea hour in the hotel was interesting. 
There were as many men as women in the big 
lounging room, surrounding all of the small, 
closely placed tea tables. I marveled at the 
many young men. But it was a silent throng. 
The orchestra played exquisitely. Groups at 
the tables talked in low tones. There was little 
or no vivacity nor animation. 

On the train from Frankfort to Berlin that 
night among the passengers in the railway car- 
riage was a stadtrath of Frankfort, which cor- 
responds to our city attorney. I tried to draw 
him out about the future of Germany. The 
former kaiser, he assured me, could never come 
back. Nor the crown prince. Time only would 
tell whether a leader strong enough to guide 
the New Germany would arise. If not, there 
was a probability he felt, in say, twenty years, 
that the people would have such longing, — 
" Sehnsucht " was the word he used, — for the 
old days before the war, that they might demand 
some monarchial form of government. You 

372 



GETTING THROUGH TO BERLIN 

remember the old aristocratic waiter in the 
Frankfort cafe and the old baggage man at 
Wiesbaden had both spoken of the good days 
in Germany before the war. This German at- 
torney had been in the German army, had 
fought at Rheims and Verdun and in Belgium. 
I spoke of the beauties of Bruges. He re- 
marked quickly, " We never harmed Bruges." 
Adding, " Nor Ghent." 

" But Ghent is terribly destroyed," I ven- 
tured. 

' ' The English did it, shelling from their men 
of war," he said. Which is true, but they did 
it to dislodge the Germans. 

' ' America should not have been allowed to 
get into the war, ' ' was his opinion. * ' That was 
Germany's great mistake." He spoke of the 
two weeks' messe or industrial exhibition at 
Frankfort that had closed Oct. 15. 

" What countries were represented with ex- 
hibits?" I asked. He enumerated Holland and 
Sweden, but added that buyers had come from 
all over the world, England, France, etc. And 
they had offered the Germans much credit, he 
remarked. " Our manufacturers said they did 

373 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



not know if they could carry out the contracts, 
but the buyers told them they could have all the 
credit they needed." He said there was much 
suffering through the need of milk and fats for 
the children. 

In Berlin the next day I went to the office 
of a man who has the distinction of being a 
business counsel and to whom I had been re- 
ferred by the Frankfort attorney to get infor- 
mation on general business conditions. He re- 
ceived us most cordially — a cultured gentle- 
man of the old school. ' ' Nothing better could 
happen to us than that the people of America 
should want to know our present situation — I 
am glad to tell you what I can, ' ' he said. ' ' Con- 
ditions are better generally with us. The Amer- 
ican Army of Occupation has brought food into 
Germany and that has helped us very much. 
We were greatly in need of fats, oils, meats, and 
chocolate. We did not have sugar and cocoa. 
Our financial position is the worst. The high 
price of money makes things hard. We can only 
buy from foreign countries what is absolutely 
necessary in raw materials. Wages are three to 
four times higher than before the war. The cost 

374 



GETTING THROUGH TO BERLIN 

of living has advanced equally. But with work, 
strength of will and trust, sooner or later there 
will be a return of healthy conditions. The 
German people are sound at heart and in mind. 
The workmen are anxious that life should re- 
turn to the normal and the unrest cease. The 
unrest is caused by a few unscrupulous leaders. 
I do not believe the Bolshevists have any force 
in Germany. 

" Our former social life is returning," he 
continued. " The war intensified a public life 
that has been at fever heat. The soldier return- 
ing for a short leave from the fronts, where 
death had stared him in the face and knowing 
he was to return to it, brought on this intense 
life, which was reflected in the movies, in the 
theaters, dances, in everything. Now there is 
a tendency to return to the old family life in 
which lay the solid security of the country." 

This man did not believe there was any imme- 
diate hunger or distress in Germany. There is 
work for all the soldiers who will work and 
when I spoke of soldiers begging in the streets 
of Frankfort, he claimed it was unnecessary — 



375 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



that there are organizations to care for the 
maimed, and schools for their re-education. 

The former army officers and their families, 
lie claimed, were in the most difficult position 
today, since these officers had learned only the 
art of war and had no other means of earning a 
living since the army is cut down. But the state 
is helping them by creating positions in tax 
offices for them. The children still suffer from 
malnutrition because there is little milk and 
fats. The flour is coarse because all of the 
grain is milled. 

' ' What you feed to the stock we must use for 
bread," he explained. "This will be a hard 
winter, but I do not believe it will be the worst 
winter since the war. Heretofore we had to 
always provide food for our troops — now that 
the war is over we will have that food for the 
people. Conditions are not as bad as formerly. 
Building is beginning, but everything is very 
high. I have faith in the future of Germany," 
he emphasized, ' ' the good seed is sprouting and 
New Germany will right herself. ' ' He refused 
to say how many soldiers Germany had lost in 
the war — they do not give the figures — but 

376 



GETTING THROUGH TO BERLIN 

added " every soldier lost in the war was one 
too many. ' ' 

This man referred me to Redacteur Paul 
Bloch of the Berliner Tagesblatt. Mr. Bloch 
was not in, but I had a few hurried moments' 
conversation with his managing editor. He said 
things are in a very bad way in Berlin, that 
there is great distress. There is much suffering 
among the children in the small towns of the 
vicinity. He remarked that America had prom- 
ised to help Germany but had not done so. When 
I asked in what way he did not have time to 
talk further, so I suppose he referred to the 
fourteen points. 

We had lunch at Kempinski's, which is a 
large restaurant of the middle class, where 
the food was very reasonable, especially when 
counted in French or American money and the 
menu was long and varied. To quote a few 
prices, a German beefsteak with vegetables or 
salad was 4.75 marks ; lamb with beans, 7.25 ; 
young roast goose with salad, 13.50. There was 
fish of all kinds, vegetables, an omelette was 
6.50, scrambled eggs 4.75, coffee with milk 1.25. 
At the top of the menu card in heavy type are 

377 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



the words, ' ' 50 gramm schwartzbrot 5 pf . " We 
had an excellent meal for less than an American 
dollar, including service. Tips are forbidden 
generally in hotels and restaurants of Germany, 
as they are in Italy, and one-tenth added for 
service. 

As we could obtain no room in a hotel, the 
Adlon and a half dozen others to which we ap- 
plied being full, we decided to leave on the night 
train, so took an hour's drive about the city. 
First to the Reichstag, the German house of 
congress that has been the scene of so many 
stormy sessions since the war. Y^e stood before 
the big iron figure of Hindenburg in which were 
driven 5,600 golden nails, 75,000 silver and 780,- 
000 iron nails at the cost of 100 marks, 5 marks 
and 1 mark, respectively, from Sept. 4, 1915, to 
the end of August, 1918. The nails evidently 
were meant as an honor for the old German field 
marshal and the money used for the war fund. 
Now the gigantic statue, which has a promi- 
nent place at the head of the Siegesalle, near the 
victory column of the war of 1870, is surrounded 
by scaffolding and is to be shortly removed. 

The Siegesalle is the boulevard down either 
side of which, at short intervals, is a heroic 

378 



GETTING THROUGH TO BERLIN 

white marble figure of a former ruler of the 
House of Hohenzollern. The woodland back- 
ground is picturesque. We drove through the 
Potsdamer Platz, one of the principal business 
squares of Berlin, and then to see the palace of 
the former kaiser. The cabby pointed with such 
glee to the bomb marks on the front wall and the 
demolished side doorway that we wondered if he 
had been in the mob of Spartacists who had 
caused the destruction in the attack of the revo- 
lutionists last January. But he told us he was a 
Prussian. The great gates were closed. Big 
placards were pasted on the columns of the en- 
trance, ending, " Rauber von Frieden " (Rob- 
bers of Peace). The immense castle was de- 
serted, the shutters all closed. The palace of the 
former crown prince, about a block away, had 
chains across the entrances. 

Dropping into a little cafe for the coffee hour, 
here is one incident. Two young men, evidently 
office clerks, sat at a table near us. One took a 
small round parcel from his pocket and laying 
it on the table opened it carefully. It was a 
half pound of butter. They discussed it with 
much pleasure. From another pocket he drew 

379 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



a parcel with two rolls. Painstakingly he spread 
a thin layer of butter on the rolls and ate them 
with relish, first replacing the precious butter 
parcel carefully back into its wrappings and 
depositing it in his coat pocket. Butter is more 
precious than gems in Berlin. 

We walked through the business section and 
then across the River Spree which winds 
through the city, and then the length of Unter 
den Linden. Soap at 7 marks 50 for a large 
cake and chocolate were sold on the streets. 
Unter, den Linden is a disappointment ; the few 
scrawny trees in the center of the wide thor- 
oughfare might be anything but lindens. Auto- 
mobile salesrooms give an air of modern dash 
to blocks of small shops on either side. 

We had dinner in the Bristol hotel. Venison 
was on the menu. There was extra charge for 
bread. I even had an omelette. We left Berlin 
that night for Frankfort. We had seen no evi- 
dences of the big strike in Berlin ; cars and taxis 
were running. Little news of the outside world 
was to be had. 

On the train we met a German who spoke 
English fluently, having spent some time in 
America, where his business had been taken 

380 



GETTING THROUGH TO BERLIN 

over by the alien property custodian. His card 
showed he was manager of a cotton plant. In a 
quiet discussion with Miss Bennett and my- 
self he made many interesting comments. ' ' Ger- 
many got into the war through the incompetency 
of her diplomats," he said. " I am confident," 
he remarked, " that the old kaiser did not want 
the war. But I am just as confident that he 
might have prevented it. We got into it through 
his faults and the incompetency of the men with 
him. Then, of course, it was the fault of the 
German people for permitting such a govern- 
ment. Every German has a vote in the Reichs- 
tag. The kaiser had the right to appoint his 
own ministers, but the Reichstag could refuse 
their budget. Of course they never did. " 

"Why," I asked. 

' ' You forget the power of tradition, ' ' was 
his reply. * ' The people believed we were forced 
into the war. Then they found it could be 
stopped if we did not want too much." He said 
Germany had made a hard peace. " The Ger- 
mans believed in the promises made them," he 
said. ' 1 1 am sure if we had made such promises 
America would not have been stupid enough to 

381 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



believe them. We Germans are stupid politi- 
cally," he repeated. 

"America should never have been drawn 
into the war," was his statement. Then he 
said : ' ' Our submarine warfare was a big 
mistake. It was a failure and worst of all it 
brought America into the war. But I under- 
stand America would have gone into the war, 
anyway. Is that true? " 

He seemed an enlightened man and I asked 
what about Belgium? He admitted their sol- 
diers might have taken things that did not be- 
long to them — armies had done that before. He 
would not believe there were Belgian atrocities. 
He had never heard of Dinant. ' ' We have got- 
ten rid of monarchy," he remarked, " and now 
you have it." His opinion was that Germany 
was suffering from the open frontier. Many un- 
necessary articles, such as perfumes, for in- 
stance, were coming in through the occupied 
Rhineland and they are powerless to stop them. 
These are taking the money that should be used 
for necessities of life. This and the low value 
of the mark is what makes conditions so hard 
at the present. 

382 



GETTING THROUGH TO BERLIN 

In Frankfort, where we stopped between 
trains, I went into a tiny grocery in a side street 
to price potatoes. They asked for my potato 
card — no potatoes could be sold without. They 
were 15 pfennigs a pound. They had been as 
high as 22 pfennigs a pound which evidently is 
very hard on the poor people. There was plenty 
of fruit, delicious pears and apples sold on the 
streets. The wardrobe girl at the hotel told me 
things had been very bad, but they were better 
now. The room clerk said it was the money 
situation that was hardest. "We don't know 
what will happen next," he said. 

A morning train took us to Mayence. In the 
compartment was a beautiful woman who told 
us she was a Hollander, but had married a 
German so she could not go back to see her 
people in Holland. Her husband had been 
wounded in the war and she had come to Berlin 
from their home in Dusseldorf to nurse him. 
That was in the winter of 1918. It was terribly 
cold, she told us, and they had nothing to eat 
but soup. There was no bread, no butter, no 
meat. Everyone was undernourished. 

"That was why we lost the war," she said. 
383 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



" The people could not face such another 
winter. ' ' She was very pessimistic. ' ' Bolshev- 
ism will come," she said, " and not to Germany 
alone, but to the whole world." 

There seems to be much bitterness between 
the people of Holland and the people of Bel- 
gium. She said the Belgians did not appreciate 
that Holland had kept many of them when they 
had to leave their country. Her views evidently 
voiced those of a certain class. 

Having -the afternoon in Mayence I decided 
to take a car and motor out through some of the 
hamlets to get a closer up vision of how the 
people take the occupation. At Nieder Olm we 
found black French colonial troops, from Mar- 
tinique, swarming the village streets. Farther 
on, in the fields were numerous corrugated iron 
huts, which, we learned, were filled with ammu- 
nition, ready in case of necessity. 

In Worrstadt we had to drink coffee with a 
little German woman — she had coffee now, 
she told me, for the French officer and his wife 
who had been billeted in her home had given 
her some. She showed me the parched corn 
they had used before. These French people had 

384 



GETTING THROUGH TO BERLIN 

also gotten for her a kettle of meat fat which 
was carefully hoarded. She spoke of them af- 
fectionately as " Meine Francozen " (My 
French people). They had left her what pro- 
visions they could when they had to go, and she 
was so appreciative. Their photographs had an 
honored place in the best room. Everything 
had been better since the French had come. 

Her brother came in. He said the German 
peace was too hard. The terms would ruin the 
country. I hazarded that the French believed* 
they had not received what they should from 
the war. He asked what about President Wil- 
son's fourteen points. 

Business in the village was good, but every- 
thing was very high, he said. And there was no 
coal. They could only heat one room in each 
house. I remarked the hotels in Paris had no 
heat at all. " But the French have our coal, 
they have the whole Saar region," was his argu- 
ment. He claimed the war was not entirely the 
fault of Germany, it was the fault of the diplo- 
mats of all the countries he wanted me to under- 
stand. 

" The German people do not know how to 
hate," he emphasized. 

385 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



' ' What about the Song of Hate your soldiers 
sang? " asked Miss Bennett. They asked what 
it was. " We have never heard it," they said. 
The man was sure there would never be a mon- 
archy again — Germany would always be a 
republic. 

From Mayence that evening we took a tram- 
car to Wiesbaden, the famous health resort, a 
few miles distant. It was our one hope of 
getting a sleeper to Paris but even the offer of 
100 francs failed to secure berths, so we sat up 
in the stiff seats through another long night. 
In Wiesbaden we had dined at the Hotel Rose, 
where French officers and their families, Eng- 
lish officers, and an occasional American uni- 
form, made the dining room very gay. We even 
found the prices there in a fashionable resort 
not so high as in Paris. An American Y man 
from the Army of Occupation at Coblenz spoke 
to me. 

" It is hard to believe anything against these 
people. They are so charming. Doesn't seem 
possible they could have been our enemies," he 
said. 

The next morning at eight o'clock we had to 
386 



GETTING THROUGH TO BERLIN 

leave the train at Nancy, though we had been 
told it was a through train to Paris. It was in 
Nancy that 1,145 bombs fell and all about the 
depot are signs of the destruction, with some 
rebuilding started. We went to see the famous 
public square, Stanislas Place, one of the most 
beautiful squares in Europe. At the corners 
are magnificent fountains and a wonderful 18th 
century forged iron gateway by Jean Lamour 
tli at fortunately were not harmed. 

On the train to Paris a French general lent 
me his Saturday Evening Post. He had been 
reading it with a dictionary. On the margins of 
the stories he had notatious of the words in 
French. After ' ' sad ' ' was the word ' ' triste. ' ' 
He praised the American soldier, telling me he 
had had many in his division. He was well 
informed on American politics. There would be 
no more war, was his opinion. The world has 
lost twenty million men in dead and disabled 
through this war, was his comment. But he 
believed President Wilson stopped hostilities 
too soon. He should have permitted Marshal 
Foch to advance, as they had planned, to the 
Rhine. Saving one man then might sacrifice a 

387 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



million in twenty years, was his military atti- 
tude. Evidently he was not entirely convinced 
that there would be no more war. 

But the French soldier loves President Wil- 
son for having stopped the war. One told me so 
last night. He had been eleven months in the 
front line trenches. He also assured me, and he 
is a business man of wide connections in Paris, 
that the French do not hate the Germans. They 
fought out their differences on the battlefields. 
Now they will resume trade relations. It must 
come. The common soldier cherishes no bitter- 
ness. Only those who lost dear ones cannot 
forget. 



388 



CHAPTER XXVII 

WHERE FASHIONS ARE CREATED 

Paris, Oct. 22. 

IT WAS an imposing white stone mansion we 
entered, on a wide fashionable street. Two 
tall, liveried footmen, twin Hercules, bowed us 
in. Through an anteroom of quiet elegance and 
noiseless doors opened before a grand staircase. 
Treacling its gray velvet steps, my feet sank in 
cleliciously. The landing at the turn gave a 
sense of space and softly shaded lights. Up the 
next flight of steps and a gracious woman 
stepped forth from an informal group. She 
received us with just the right degree of cor- 
diality. It is so often overdone. "We were 
ushered into a salon that even my American 
stoicism refused to take unblinkingly. The floor 
was of marble, dark and light, in an artistic 
conventional design. Over it a few priceless 
rugs were scattered. I dropped down on a 
settee, a wonderful old Louis Quinze piece — 
and my eyes opened wider. The salon was large 

389 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



and all its walls were concealed by magnificent 
tapestries. The tapestry that covered the entire 
wall opposite me was a Chinese scene, as ex- 
quisitely wrought as if it had been done with a 
brush. In novel cupola arrangements, high in 
the four ceiling corners of the salon, were fes- 
toons of Chinese bells. At either end of the 
salon was a Louis xv commode on which stood 
a huge blue Chinese vase, with curling dragons. 
Against the vase, on the commode at the farther 
end of the room, was an open ostrich fan in 
colors of flame, that caught and held the eye. 
The settees and chairs were all in the Louis xv 
period. I was reminded that there was a craze 
for things Chinese during the reign of that King- 
Louis and this salon was in reproduction. I 
had failed to catch the name of the soft-voiced 
woman who shook my hand at the head of the 
stairs when I was introduced. 

Suddenly I remembered. It was all wonder- 
ful, but I was losing time. " Didn't you say we 
were going to the dressmaker's this after- 
noon! " I asked Cousin Berthe, impatiently. 
' ' Yes, ' ' she answered, ' ' that is where you are. ' ' 
We were in the " House of Callot," one of the 

390 



WHERE FASHIONS ARE CREATED 

foremost establishments of fashion creators in 
Paris. 

This chapter is on Paris fashions, and any 
mere man who might have begun reading it with 
the idea that it is on reconstruction had better 
stop right here. Unless he is interested in how 
milady goes to buy a Paris gown and hat at the 
world-famous couturieres and modistes in this 
autumn of 1919, a year after the armistice. 
Paris has always been the spotlight for the 
world of womankind, since it is from here that 
the final edict goes forth on what she shall wear. 
And all dress reform to the contrary, with all 
her unswerving loyalty to American ideas, the 
American woman preaches ' ' America First ' ' 
in everything — but styles. Somehow here in 
this gay city on the Seine there has always 
gathered a little band of ultra mode creators 
who have found the secret of the word ' ' chic. ' ' 
And they know how to express it in women's 
clothes. 

" What a beautiful fan," I whispered to 
Cousin Amalie. 

' ' You can buy it, ' ' was her answer. ' ' You 
can buy anything you see here." 

391 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



" You don't mean this furniture or these 
tapestries? " I asked, incredulously. 

" Yes, everything is for sale." 

I subsided into an " Oh ! " 

The first requisite for the American entering 
these establishments is the proper introduction 
and that must preferably be through a Pari- 
sienne who has at some time been a patron. 
Because Madame, my cousin, was known to 
them, we were that afternoon taken through the 
House of Callot which has only recently re- 
moved to this palatial place. The room beyond 
the grand salon was equally beautiful though 
smaller and on a different scale. On its soft 
toned walls hung a few marvelous paintings and 
the furniture and hangings were in keeping. 
Then through a web of corridors and the door 
opened to a small square room, the four walls 
of which, from the ceiling to the floor, were solid 
mirrors. Over the mirrored side walls hung 
a couple of framed gems of the Louis xvi period. 
The rug on the floor blended warmly with the 
upholstery of the Louis Seize furniture. 

' ' What is this ? ' ' I asked in awe. 

"A fitting room!" Adjoining was another 
392 



WHERE FASHIONS ARE CREATED 

fitting room, paneled in mirrors that carried 
out another French period in its rugs and pic- 
tures, a lovely drawing room in miniature. That 
is the French of it, to see that the setting for 
the gown is right, that the background for their 
creation of art has no jarring note. 

Back in the salon the mannequins or 
models began to come in, tripping lightly on 
their high-heeled, wide-toed satin pumps. At 
first it was bewildering. Soon it was apparent 
every model was a part of her gown; it had 
been made for her. They must choose them as 
types. The girl with the Titian hair piled high 
sauntered in, robed in a frock of soft green, 
like the green of the waving Iowa corn at sun- 
set, and the dusky haired mademoiselle tilted 
before us in something warm toned and rich and 
subtle. Sometimes one came swathed to her ear- 
lobes in a high, fur-collared coat, and as she bal- 
anced from her toes to her heels before us she 
would fling back the coat, and slipping from her 
pretty shoulders, it would reveal a ravishing 
evening gown made to go under it, because it 
reflected the coat in rich colorings in satins and 
georgettes. One of us would murmur " Tres 

393 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



joli." And the pretty mannequin would smile 
and linger a moment longer before going on to 
the next group, there to repeat her sway grace- 
fully from side to side before backing away, 
until she had circled the salon and made her 
exit. 

It was in the House of Premet, which you 
must pronounce " Praymay " if you would be 
understood, that I fairly reveled in charming 
creations in my tour of the big establishments. 
A bright eyed little English girl there explained 
it all to me. It seems the leadership in styles 
in Paris fluctuates from season to season. One 
year one house occupies the pinnacle and the 
next year another. This year, so she told me, 
with a touch of personal pride for her connec- 
tion with the establishment, this year it was 
Premet. She was called away just then, so I 
don 't know how they determine the premiership. 
Anyway, the House of Premet was showing 
most beautiful models, and their styles had a 
conservative elegance that the real French- 
woman loves. Not the loud, bizarre, startling, 
combinations that we, on this side, are often 
led to believe are French. In this establish- 

394 



WHERE FASHIONS ARE CREATED 

ment there is no attempt to camouflage the 
dressmaking end. A figure in the last word in 
blouses occupies a handsome table in the center 
of the room; on a side table another exhibits 
the newest in sweaters. But the salon is rich 
in old hangings and furniture, and the wall 
spaces are filled with large, antique, gold-framed 
mirrors. One near the entrance door had a hole 
gashed in the glass, and I was wondering who 
was going to be " out of luck " for seven years, 
when I was told ' ' that was done when the bomb 
crashed outside here in the Place Vendome, dur- 
ing one of the air raids on Paris." It had oc- 
curred at night, so, fortunately, none of the 
girls were in the establishment. "Have you 
many girls employed here T " I asked, seeing 
not more than a dozen saleswomen on the floor. 
"About five hundred," was the reply. 

On the Rue de la Paix is the House of Pa- 
quin, where the liveried doorman ushers you 
into a salesroom filled with exquisite confec- 
tions hung on wire figures. You are taken back 
to a stairway that curls up to a big salon where 
the mannequins trip out in the latest creations 
of its designers. And so it goes whether you 

395 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



go to Drecoll, Worth, Ducet, Renee, Jenny, 
Cheruit, and all the names that every woman 
learns to know through fashion plates and mag- 
azines. One house is noted for its evening 
gowns, another for its street frocks, another for 
its coats, and which is which every Parisienne 
can tell you. It is because the American woman 
does not know that she is often ' ' stung. ' ' An 
American friend of mine asked me to accompany 
her to one of the big establishments when she had 
a gown fitted. I spoke of the famous house later 
to a Parisienne and she looked surprised. 

" Isn't it a good establishment? " I asked. 
" Oh, yes," she answered hesitatingly, 
" only—." 

" Go on, " I begged. 

' ' Well, the owner was said to be pro-German 
and we have not gone there since the war be- 
gan. ' ' 

" If I had only known, ' ' my American friend 
regretted, adding, " perhaps that is why I met 
so few Frenchwomen there." 

Apropos of what is sold Americans I was 
taken to a new house that opened recently. Its 
big showrooms were crowded with American 

396 



WHERE FASHIONS ARE CREATED 

men buyers, every seat around the salons being 
occupied when we entered. Beside each im- 
portant buyer sat a saleswoman with a pad 
and pencil. If a buyer showed a preference for 
a gown, the mannequin was signaled to return. 
Perhaps he buys a model for the sleeves, for a 
bit of original design in trimmings, for a skirt 
drapery or a collar, which he has modified or 
has his American designer use as a motif. It 
is the idea he is after. An original trimming is 
known by the house that creates it. Now in 
this establishment the model gowns were most 
extreme, like much of the bizarre that we get in 
our country labeled the ''dernier cri," the last 
word from Paris. A saleswoman who knew the 
Parisienne with me, after welcoming her most 
effusively, remarked, ' ' We have done a million 
francs worth of business here in three days." 

" All good American money," I hazarded. 

' ' We have many American customers, ' ' she 
said. Their opening for their French trade I 
learned was later. Then, of course, the models 
would be different. 

The well-dressed Frenchwoman is always 
chic. She has an innate color sense that makes 

397 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



her a picture in whatever she wears. Even the 
little shop girl has that knack of wearing a 
simple black frock with distinction and the good 
sense never to overdress. 

How does one go about getting a gown in a 
big establishment! Like this: Suppose a 
mannequin trips out in a dress that you know 
instantly is what you want. You communicate 
this fact to the saleswoman who hovers near 
you and she calls mademoiselle back as she is 
leaving the room. You are allowed to examine 
the fabric carefully. Then you are conducted 
to a fitting room, the model gown is brought and 
you are put into it. I say put into it, for that 
process requires four or five women, one to 
hook it up and the rest to exclaim in French 
superlatives about it. " Oh, ravissante! " is a 
favorite, and from the lips of Mme. Berthe of 
Premet's, it is convincing. 

You must have a large sense of balance not to 
let this subtle flattery turn your head, but say 
you do survive, you may demand to try on an- 
other and finally select the gown. You may want 
it in another color and the saleswoman will de- 
cide whether it would be good in that shade. 

398 



WHERE FASHIONS ARE CREATED 

She will suggest the alterations in the model 
to suit your style. Her decision " goes," be- 
cause she would not be a saleswoman in a lead- 
ing Paris house unless she were a color and 
style artist. Then they bring you materials 
and you choose from them. Often it is huge 
bolts of goods and uncut furs and sometimes 
only samples. 

Your first fitting will be a great disappoint- 
ment because they fit nothing but a coarse white 
cotton lining and they fit it tightly, even to a long, 
tight, sleeve. Just about the time you get up 
the courage to ask timidly, ' ' Isn 't it going to 
have short sleeves'? " you are told smilingly, 
' ' that 's all — come back Thursday at eleven. ' ' 

Thursday is when the big show opens. A 
waist maker and her assistant put the waist 
on you and then comes a skirt maker and her 
assistant and these four are supplemented by 
the saleswoman who took the original order. 
If you are weak on French they add an Eng- 
lish interpreter. The six all talk at once and 
keep up a running comment in French as 
they stick in a pin here or snip a stitch tliere. 
Should you have a mild suggestion to 

399 



WITHIN THE YEAH AFTER 



offer it is apt to be frowned down and you 
end by leaving it to them. The result is 
worth while. As to the price, you must ask 
that at the beginning and if you are accom- 
panied by a Frenchwoman who knows values, 
you will escape paying American prices. The 
artist saleswoman will even suggest the sort of 
hat that will harmonize with the gown. 

I don 't suppose the woman has lived since the 
Lord made Eve who has not at some time or 
another sighed pensively and wished in her 
innermost soul to have a Paris hat. Some delv- 
ing antiquarian is going to prove some day that 
Eve herself, kneeling before her favorite pool in 
the Garden of Eden, pushed back her hair and 
murmured yearningly, ' ' if I could only find a 
leaf that would follow the lines of my face." 
That is what the Paris milliner does, follows the 
lines of your face, for the Paris hat like the 
Paris gown must express you. But it is not so 
much the hat after all, as the way the Parisi- 
enne wears it that gives it its dash. 

A French cousin took me to her modiste. It 
was up a dark stairway and into a most unat- 
tractive room. I recalled the big millinery em- 

400 




The Statute of Von Hindenburg in the Scaffolding in Berlin in the process of 

being removed. 




At Mayence, the Neighborhood of the Depot. 



WHERE FASHIONS ARE CREATED 

poriums in America and, looking around at a 
few wire hat stands on which teetered ngly hat 
frames, I exclaimed, "What a funny place!" 
" Wait," she said. 

In came Mademoiselle Modiste. There was a 
long exchange of French courtesies. In a 
French shop, that is exclusive, you don't just 
run in and say, "I'd like to see a hat." No, 
indeed. It isn't done that way. You wind the 
conversation around to it. After the milliner 
has inquired sympathetically about your health 
and that of your family, and the state of the 
weather has been sufficiently discussed, you 
touch lightly the paramount question of the hat. 
She invites you to a seat before a mirror. Then 
you wait. Waiting is one of the things you 
learn in Europe, and if you don 't fume and fret 
about it they doubt whether you are a good 
American. 

After while back trips the little tight-skirted 
mademoiselle with a vivacious air of having 
walked a block, and in her hands she bears a 
crumpled paper sack, some four feet square, 
and she drops it on the floor beside you. If you 
are naturally curious, as I am, you will peep 

401 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



into the paper sack, and your nose will ascend in 
disgnst. What does she think you want? A 
sombrero? You wonder if something about you 
suggests the wild and woolly west. 

There was a running combat of words be- 
tween her and the French matron. She held 
up a light blue felt frame. Its crown was a 
foot high and the brim a foot and a half wide. 
It was bare of trimming. Poising herself gin- 
gerly on one foot back of my chair she set 
the sombrero on my head, and with a pat here 
and a push there settled it down on my hair, 
until it lodged coquettishly over one eye. 

' ' I wouldn 't think of wearing such a fright, ' ' 
I exclaimed. 

' ' Look only at the color, ' ' said mademoiselle. 
4 ' Do you like the color 1 ' ' 

She stood off, and with a bird-like twist of 
her head critically scanned my reflection in the 
glass. " I can't see the color for the shape," I 
laughed. 

1 • Ah, we only get the color now. Later we get 
the shape." 

A hat for a Frenchwoman isn't a fancy of a 
moment ; it is a matter of long and earnest re- 

402 



WHERE FASHIONS ARE CREATED 

flection. That is why it looks it. And the little 
delivery girl who brings it to you in a big round 
box is just as you see her on the French 
comedy stage. 

I have been in the great establishment of 
Caroline Reboux, down on the Rue de la Paix. 
Now any New York or Chicago milliner will 
get a great respect for you if you show fa- 
miliarity with the Reboux hat, for it is the lead- 
ing millinery house of Paris, and its models 
over here are considered the final word in the 
world of headgear. Caroline Reboux is a beau- 
tiful young woman, with white hair and a girlish 
face. Around the room stood the inevitable 
high wire floor stands on which hung most un- 
interesting hats. The newest creations are 
kept under cover until finally brought out for 
a try-on, and then carried away again. 

I watched Mme. Caroline sell a hat. A trail- 
ing assistant brought her a two-inch- wide piece 
of white crinoline. This she pinned around the 
customer's head for the size. Then taking a 
piece of black velvet she held it diagonally 
across the front of the woman's hair, and said: 
11 It will be like this. Come in Tuesday at 3." 

403 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



And the hat — I saw it later — was a bit of art, 
not in the hand, but on the head of the woman 
for whom it was made. For they believe m fit- 
ting the hat to the face and simplicity of line 
is their guiding star. 

Last Sunday I went out to the Longchamps, 
the great race course just beyond the Bois de 
Boulogne. Though the newspapers of Paris 
feature the Sunday races at the Longchamps, 
the real drawing card is the style show, for all 
the great dressmaking and millinery houses 
send their mannequins to the Longchamps races 
to exhibit their latest creations, and there the 
first glimpse of every new fad is seen. Fully 
50,000 people must have been at the track that 
day. They remain in the grandstand for a race, 
but as soon as a heat is run the grandstand 
empties and every one walks about the grounds 
to view the styles. It was cold and the variety 
of fur coats shown was a show in itself. People 
promenaded about watching the passing modes ; 
many took place in line before the betting- 
booths, but eventually they would come back to 
see the style display that is the supreme pur- 
pose of it all. Men were as interested in the 
new modes as women. 

404 



WHERE FASHIONS A RE CREATED 

Frequently a Frenchman accompanies his 
wife to buy a hat. At Eeboux's I saw men sit- 
ting patiently beside the women who were try- 
ing on hats, giving their opinion critically as 
they would lean forward on their canes. For 
the Frenchwoman dresses to please the men, 
and the modern Frenchman, understanding and 
admiring beauty first, is a severe critic of 
woman's dress. 

Thus you see Paris creates styles seriously, 
throwing heart and soul into the game. Per- 
haps that is why for so many generations there 
has emanated from its artistic atmosphere the 
fashions of a whole world. 



405 



CHAPTER XXVIII 

BACK TO THE U. S. A. 

Nov. 7. 

WASN'T it a "grand and glorious feel- 
ing ' ' to find yourself actually on the 
homeward-bound boat after five months through 
the upheavals of war-torn Europe! 

It was. 

But instead of all my troubles being over then, 
I found a few new ones had only just begun. 
Getting back to this country is as difficult as get- 
ting over had been, only in a different way. 
My fond hopes that when my heels clicked up 
the gangplank of the home-going steamer the 
worst would be over, had been dashed long be- 
fore I left Paris. Nothing less than the cable 
message from my office to get to Berlin at all 
hazards would have persuaded me to change my 
sailing date, for I had made my reservation 
back in August for mid-October and steamer 
reservations at that moment were at a high 
premium. Taking the next boat looks easy from 

406 



BACK TO THE U. S. A. 



this side of the Atlantic, but when the next and 
the next and all those scheduled to sail are com- 
pletely filled and your chances hang on the slen- 
der thread that someone might give up a state- 
room at the last hour, you begin to feel that 
home is a million miles away. At last, by mere 
chance, I was able to obtain a berth in a state- 
room with two other girls, both " Y ' ' workers, 
one returning from Czecho-Slovakia, a room so 
small that only one of us could dress in it at a 
time. But this was the last steamer to sail 
from Europe on Oct. 25 at that acute moment 
of the dock strike in New York. The La France, 
booked to leave the same day from Havre, had 
not left America, and 500 boats were known 
to be tied up in New York harbor. It looked 
like I was not to miss any of the thrills in getting 
back. 

The most worrisome development had been 
the announcement that no traveler might carry 
more than one thousand francs in paper and ten 
francs in silver, or its equivalent in any foreign 
money, out of the country. That is only about 
$110, and I knew it would not be enough to 
take me home unless I walked part of the way. 

407 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



The day before, the Paris edition of the New 
York Herald had featured a story about one of 
the Vanderbilts who had to give up 40,000 
francs at the pier, and cited the dire conse- 
quences to travelers attempting to evade the new 
law. I went to the American press headquar- 
ters in the Hotel Crillon and talked to the 
Herald correspondent who wrote the story. He 
assured me they were the facts. There was 
nothing to do but to have my expense money 
cabled to a New York bank. Even then there 
was no assurance that the cable would reach 
there. My cable message from Berlin to Daven- 
port has not yet arrived ; some censor must have 
it filed neatly away. I doubt if it ever got to 
Potsdam, which is the next station to Berlin. 

The passage across was rough — November is 
always so on the ocean. The overcrowded con- 
dition of the steamer compelled many cabin 
passengers to travel steerage. A young Amer- 
ican business man whom I encountered at Bou- 
logne sur Mer, when we got out of the steamer 
train from Paris in the cold, gray, 6 o'clock 
dawn to carry our hand luggage to the customs 
officials and have our passports given the final 

408 



BACK TO THE U. S. A. 



stamp, told me he had been called home by the 
death of his mother, and all he could get was 
steerage passage. He had hoped to find place in 
the first or second cabin when he got aboard, but 
later found it impossible even to get his meals 
there. 

The passport rulings before leaving France 
are complicated. It was necessary to report to 
the police headquarters in person three days 
before leaving Paris, and the procedure in- 
volved long waits in line and the questions of 
many officials. Then your passport must be 
called for at the end of the third day, and there 
is more red tape. The fact that in one of my 
official trips the signature and seal of the Paris 
Prefecture of Police himself had been placed 
on my passport and the aid of a French clerk 
from Cousin Arthur's office who " knew the 
ropes," enabled me to get through in an hour, 
but this was remarkably unusual. The new 
three day rule at the passport bureau, I had 
been told, might keep some people from leaving 
if they did not know of it, and there was that 
possibility of getting better accommodations on 
the steamer. But all such hopes were in vain, 

409 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



About half seas over we sailed into the grip 
of a violent wind storm, and for three days and 
nights the big liner tossed about like a toy. To 
stand on the glass enclosed deck and watch the 
mountain-high waves dash over the prow of 
the boat was an exhilarating sight. A little 
boy voiced the general sentiment one day, after 
his toys had rolled away from him time and 
again, when he cried, " Mother, why does the 
captain have to go over every wave, couldn't 
he go around some of them? " In the dining 
salon the first device tried was that of saturat- 
ing witli water the tablecloths where dishes 
were placed, to keep them from rolling, but 
later, when the seas became too high, two inch 
frames were laid on each table, enclosing the 
places and even then the soup would persist in 
spilling over. It was like eating when poised in 
a high swing, holding on with one hand to the 
arm of the chair while you ate with the other, 
getting in the bites after a big dip. 

One evening in the main salon listening to a 
concert by the ship orchestra, I was on a set- 
tee with a pretty girl of the Smith college unit 
who had seen active service abroad during the 

410 



BACK TO THE U. S. A. 



war. A big lurch came and she was skidded 
clear across the room into the arms of a Red 
Cross officer. A clergyman in a " Y " uniform, 
interrupted in telling me his experiences during 
two years overseas, started to the rescue to- 
gether with several other men. They all landed 
in a heap in front of the Red Cross officer, only 
to have him and his friends join them on the 
return slide when the boat lurched the other 
way. I was clinging frantically to the back 
of the settee. It was comical — only the Smith 
college girl carried a bruised nose for several 
days. 

Ropes were stretched through the center of 
the decks and these gave safety holds when try- 
ing to walk about there, for the frost made deck 
floors slippery, adding another danger to the 
pitching of the boat. Three days of this en- 
forced exercise tired out everyone but the cap- 
tain. These Dutch captains are wonderful sail- 
ors and don't seem to mind a storm. I don't 
know if this was the worst or next to the worst 
voyage he had had in his eleven years on this 
liner, because he refused to say. Anyway, he 
took his ship miles out of the course, almost to 

411 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



St. John's in Newfoundland, to get away from 
the storm. 

Up there in the fog something else happened. 
Suddenly someone exclaimed, ' ' Look, we are 
going backward." The boat was headed in the 
opposite direction and there was much excite- 
ment. It developed we had just escaped collid- 
ing with another steamer. Even the haunting- 
boom of the fog horn did not give the warning 
in time to swing around, so that the big liner 
had to back away. The first lighthouse from the 
American shore, gleaming across the waters 
was a welcome sight. It was the first light of 
home. 

The hour of landing is always a matter of 
conjecture on an ocean steamer. So much de- 
pends on winds and tide. If a ship reaches 
harbor after sundown its passengers cannot go 
ashore until the following morning. Therefore 
there was great delight when it was finally 
known we would dock about two in the after- 
noon instead of six, and be allowed to disem- 
bark immediately. A notice posted near the 
wireless bulletin board requested all passengers 
to assemble in the dining salon at 10 :30 in the 

412 



BACK TO THE U. S. A. 



morning for the inspection of the health officers. 
Passengers and crew have to undergo medical 
inspection before the ship has a bill of health 
permitting them to land. A special press tug 
brought a trio of New York reporters on board. 

On account of the dock strike there were no 
dock men to bring the liner into its pier at 
Hoboken, and a group of sailors were put off in 
a tug to dock the boat. Coming into New York 
with hundreds of water craft, scores of huge 
vessels lying there, is a novel sight. Many- 
boats, we were told, had started back with their 
cargoes on board, unable to land them. The 
stewards were obliged to handle all of the bag- 
gage, and with twelve hundred passengers that 
was no small task. One man told me he carried 
twenty trunks. He was a millinery importer 
from New York, bringing back Paris models. 

Several days before landing each passenger 
had been given a long sheet of paper entitled 
a declaration and they might be seen poring 
over them at any and all times. You are obliged 
to declare everything you bring back from Eu- 
rope and its cost. The fact that you had worn 



413 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



an article did not exempt it from declaration. 
Even repairs on your baggage must be de- 
clared. And my suitcase, which had been a vic- 
tim of Belgian atrocities, having lost its handle 
in Brussels, was down for eleven francs for a 
new handle. Evading customs officials is dan- 
gerous business since they have word of every- 
thing of value brought over. If a woman pur- 
chases a gown in Paris she is charged ten per 
cent extra as a luxury tax. If she is taking the 
dress out of the country this ten per cent is re- 
funded to her at the dock. But she pays duty 
to bring it into this country, whether she has 
worn it or not. " What I object to," said an 
American girl on board to me, ' ' is that our gov- 
ernment makes us swear to what we bring over 
and then doesn't take our word for it, but 
searches our baggage besides." 

An inspector comes to you in the dock when 
all your baggage is assembled and you open 
your trunks and valises. He may demand to 
see every article in your declaration. If he 
finds something of value you have not declared 
you are subject to fine and imprisonment, so few 
take a chance. He calls an appraiser and they 

414 



BACK TO THE U. S. A. 



figure out what duty you must pay. It takes 
hours getting your luggage through. 

At 5 o'clock, when my last piece was strapped, 
a patient old baggage man hoisted them on to a 
long-handled truck. The next problem was 
how to get it out of the docks. Brother, stand- 
ing for hours on the farther side of a picket 
fence that separated an enormous crowd from 
the steamer passengers in the big dock shed, 
had kept a taxi waiting since nine o'clock. 

' ' Lady, I can 't take this baggage out to a 
taxi. I'll be shot if I try it — you know there is 
a dock strike," the old baggage man said. 

We held a consultation over the picket fence. 
Finally a chap looking more like a Fifth avenue 
swell than a taxi man stepped up to say he 
could get my baggage out. So the old baggage 
man wheeled it to the gate, where the Fifth ave- 
nue swell took the handles of the truck and 
pushed it into an elevator. Down on the street 
landing he pushed it gingerly out to a taxi and 
though several glowering strikers were watch- 
ing, he must have had some special permit, for 
we were not molested. The distance was only a 
few blocks. It had cost $2.50 going to the 

415 



WITHIN THE YEAR AFTER 



dock last Juno, but it cost $10.60 to get us 
with the baggage to the New York hotel. That 
is what it is like, landing in America, in the 
teeth of a dock strike today. 

What impressed me most forcibly when I was 
on American ground again, was the solid com- 
fort of the American Pullman service. After 
the crowded, unsanitary European trains, after 
traveling over roads lumpy with shell holes, 
roads Bhrapne] ploughed, reconstructed only 
recently through No Man's Land, it was good 
to be in the Broadway Special gliding like velvet 
across the quiet, unscarred country. 

But what I shall remember longest, aside 
Prom Big Brother's voice calling "Betty" to 
me across the landing dock, and the Kid 
Nephew's bear hug, is the first sight from the 
train steps of that howling, yelling, Times mob, 
over a hundred strong, blaring their welcome 
with whistles and noisemakers, which sounded 
just then for all the world, like Alma Grluck 
singing " Home, Sweet Home." 



The End. 



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